Labour's election defeat can be traced back, in many respects, to the actions of the mainstream news media according to a Newstalk ZB Plus political commentator. 

Chris Hipkins told the media that he is “certainly still the leader of the Labour Party” after emerging from a Labour caucus meeting last week to discuss the party’s disastrous election result.

Hipkins told waiting media the election outcome was “obviously very disappointing for us”. But he was comfortable in his leadership, and the team had reflected on what they were proud of and what they could work on going forward.

During his breakfast show on Thursday, Mike Hosking credited the writing of Newstalk ZB Plus political commentator Chris Trotter, whose latest opinion piece 'The Curious Demise of NZ’s MSM' calls out mainstream news for its impacts on the election.

"The mainstream news media weren’t just complicit in Labour’s defeat, in many respects they were the cause of it," said Trotter. 

According to Trotter, when the Labour-NZ First coalition Government was first formed and began to gather momentum, news media began to resemble "an adjunct to the ruling party". 

He said if Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern and her colleagues created the impression that their government was in the business of political transformation then the news media appeared to have adopted the role of transformer.

"On their pages and in their programming it was clear that the reasons for transforming New Zealand, and the means adopted for achieving that goal, would not be challenged in any meaningful way."

Trotter said this was done, in part, due to the impact of Ardern's personality on "younger journalists", where her "politics of kindness would be matched by their own journalism of kindness". 

What this resulted in, according to Trotter, was bad actors of all kinds being given notice that they would be given no right of reply whatsoever. 

"Henceforth, it would be the duty of journalists to provide their readers, listeners and viewers with moral clarity," he said.

"When only one side is right, representing both sides can only be wrong. Ergo, falsehood must be de-platformed."

Trotter went on to say it was difficult to imagine a worse moment for news media to be confronted with an existential challenge on the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic

He said the media, which was "already morally compromised by the self-imposed strictures of its journalism of kindness", was now finding itself more-or-less conscripted into justifying "the deeply authoritarian state policies required to manage a full-scale national medical emergency".

"The idea that New Zealand now had a tame ‘state media’ began to grow in the minds of more and more New Zealanders."

He concluded by suggesting a new tribunal, untainted by the compromises and betrayals of the past six years, should be set up "to make certain that New Zealand’s journalists adhere to the long-established principles of their profession". 

"Our democracy demands no less," he said.