I’ve just emerged from two days down a rabbit hole I was reluctant to enter. But I took the giant leap into the abyss after an out-of-the-blue invitation - which I hoped wasn’t an own goal disguised as an opportunity.
It came from Sean Plunket, the founder of the online talk station The Platform. Essentially this is talk radio but done online and listened to mainly by people who seem to feel duped by the previous Labour government, the media, Covid messaging, and anything else that leaves them feeling grumpy.
Set up in late 2021, it’s regarded as the home of the anti-vaxxers, racists, misogynists and the anti-Jacinda crowd who’ve weaponised the word woke and throw it at anyone, or anything, opposed to their deeply conservative views about how New Zealand “used to be”.
That’s according to them, of course, and they’d rather reminisce about those (imagined, perhaps) days than proudly applaud our emerging bilingual country, the fact many more people can be themselves in an openly LGBTQI+ world that celebrates diversity and largely ignores the “stale, male and pale” attitudes that have no place in New Zealand today.
I agreed to host the 10am-1pm shift. I wondered who would really be listening and doubted Plunket’s claims of thousands of listeners at any one time.
It’s funded, in large part, by the Wright family of Tauranga, who also own the Best Start Early Childhood Centres. I regarded the late Chloe Wright, the family matriarch, as a generous and genuine person. She once gave me $1.3 million to pass on to a charity I was supporting in the Far North because she believed it was making a difference and if I vouched for the charity, that was enough.
The Platform’s studios are close to home in Auckland. Two desks, three computers, no reception. It was like a student flat, minus the beers. The night before, I was due to stand in for regular host Michael Laws. Plunket promoted me on The Platform’s Facebook page and it set the crowd off: hundreds of comments filled the page.
One bloke said: “Duncan Garner used to talk a lot of common sense and wasn’t afraid to speak his mind as much as he was allowed to. Will be interesting to see how he goes. Used to enjoy listening to him on the AM show but not when he teamed up with Tova.”
“Duncan on? That’s unfortunate,” said Deane, while another called me a “woke wanker”.
Brett commented that it would be interesting to see if I was truly woke or would speak my mind, while someone called John said it must be an April Fool’s joke and declared, “No way.”
I was more heartened by Raewyn, who said, “Great choice, Sean, I really enjoy Michael, but Duncan will bring a lot to the table in his absence. Go for it, Duncan, I enjoy your contribution to common sense.”
Lest I started to feel relaxed about what I was taking on, another concluded: “All he needs is a huge green tiki and he could claim to be indigenous Māori. It may help if he changed his name as well to Rangi or something similar.” I hadn’t even started the gig but there was the proof, writ large – as it often is - on social media posts, that New Zealand is divided. I find it sad that this “them vs us” attitude has never been so prevalent in our society. It’s like the United States, with its two distinct sides, and the hate and anger here appear to have grown.
I set the terms of my engagement with listeners: I said I would challenge views I didn’t think had a basis in fact and I would argue my point(s) with facts, not emotion.
Listening to the callers – some reasonable, some interested in genuine conversations about things that obviously concern them, and some who simply hung up and disengaged – left me in a reflective frame of mind. All voices should be in a debate, not just the ones we agree with. Excluding people is wrong, trying to find a middle ground is surely preferable.
Hundreds of journalism jobs have disappeared in the last five years at a time when we need more platforms, more voices, more reasoned debates. We should get out there and debate the issues, win on the facts. Playing the person is cheap, and ultimately cheap shots never win.
As I left the rabbit hole, I saw the Facebook feedback. One said bring back Michael fast, another said I did remarkably well. “Woke baby woke,” declared another but someone else said, “Keep him on, he’s a gem.” I was told that I had “lowered myself to the lunatic fringe”, and I also got feedback saying Sean and I were f-wits.
But I take my hat off to Sean, he’s still going three years on when many, with more funding and approval, are not.
