Nicky Hager is incredibly polarising. There's a lot of hate for him and his books. That tends to happen when you take on the Establishment and the political right - and they have good reason to regard him as an enemy. However, some of the criticism of Hager also comes from the left, even within the media and universities, where he is sometimes dismissed as a distraction or unreliable.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Hager's six existing books, together with an array of important news journalism, show him to be an exceptional investigator and public intellectual.
The real value of Hager's work is that it enhances the democratic process. His research is usually on the powerful in society, and helps us understand how that power is used. Of course it's the nature of the powerful that they seek to wield their influence without raising public awareness. But in a democracy we need to know how society really works, why decisions are made, and how they are influenced.
This is why in 2015 I contributed an affidavit to the High Court explaining why Hager's work was in the public interest and needed to be protected from police actions - you can see this here: Bryce Edwards affidavit about Nicky Hager and Dirty Politics.
Hager's focus on media and political communications
It's the traditional role of the media to investigate and hold the powerful to account. But the question is whether they do that very well. In New Zealand our political discourse is extremely thin and limited. In many ways, our news media do a very good job with the resources they have. But it's not enough. We need other contributions to political debate and information. Ideally, this should include plenty of think tanks, NGOS, universities, and other parts of civil society. But these institutions are also relatively weak in regard to contributing to the health of democracy and politics.
That's where Hager comes in. His research has always epitomised the role of the investigative journalist -dealing not with the day-to-day minutiae of politics and current events, but undertaking projects that require lengthy periods of research and analysis. No one else in New Zealand has been able to fulfil such a necessary role.
The state of New Zealand's media and political discourse has been a key concern in Hager's work. Most of his books revolve around issues to do with political communication and information. The role of the media is normally central to his work - with the assertion that the media is either being manipulated by the powerful, or not carrying out its role inadequately.
Secrets and Lies (1999), the Hollow Men (2006), and Dirty Politics (2014) are centrally concerned with how news is manufactured and influenced by the powerful. Hager clearly has a very strong dislike for, and is strongly critical of, the public relations industry. This can be seen in the topic Hager chose for his 2012 annual Bruce Jesson Foundation lecture: Investigative journalism in the age of media meltdown: from National Party Headquarters to Afghanistan. Similarly, his 2007 talk at the Auckland Museum was on Propaganda then and now. And in 2008 he gave a very good lecture to sociologists, titled Imagining a world where the PR people had won.
More recently, Hager talked at the University of Otago about problematic role of PR being used in government departments - see John Gibb's news report, Inclusion, transparency urged.
So there's a very strong chance that his new book could be about media and political communications. After all, Hager has already stated in a late 2015 interview with Toby Manhire that the book he has been working on is "one of the most important projects that I could imagine in my life" - see: 'A kick back against government intolerance' - an interview with Nicky Hager.
