Of thorny bouquets and flaming brickbats

The NZ Skeptics' Bravo and Bent-Spoon awards 2022

By Jonny Grady

2022 has been a hell of a year on the skeptical front.

Following on from a year of growing COVID-19 vaccination conspiracy theories, the year started with the protests and Occupation of Parliament grounds, starting on 6th February, mirroring to some extend the sentiment of the Q-Anon fueled, conspiracy laden attack on the US Capital in January 6th, some 13 months earlier. Little did we realise that the occupation would last for over 3 weeks; defying the police's early attempts to quietly disperse the occupiers by just ‘waiting them out' and growing ever more determined, emboldened and riotous. Many disparate groups that were considered merely ‘fringe lunatics' by most and known only really to a few percent of the population, came to the attention of the public consciousness.

Bodies with little in common in terms of their aims, and often with diametrically competing agendas, found a wider audience for their deluded beliefs and increasingly hate-filled agendas. People who previously had had little sway with the public, and even fewer credentials or evidence to back up their views, were finding themselves in the public limelight – or perhaps that should be “the torchlight of an angry mob”. Names like Destiny Church, Voices for Freedom, The Freedom & Rights Coalition, Action Zealandia, NZDSOS and Counterspin Media found a place in the hearts and minds of the disaffected Far-Right and, to a certain extent, some of those on the Far-Left.

Even after the Police moved in en masse and the illegal occupation was finally disbanded 24 days later, the legacy of the event still stains the political landscape. Although vaccination rates for COVID-19 were initially very high when compared globally for the 1st and 2nd shots, the uptake of boosters has been less successful, possibly in part due the anti-vaccine movement sowing the seeds of doubt. And there have been concerted attempts by many of these parties to gain insidious influence within the wider governance of the country by attempting to install party candidates to elected office at the recent local body elections, by hiding their political allegiances from the voting public. Thankfully, those attempts appear to have been broadly unsuccessful.

As many of the individuals behind these groups would not have any public recognition prior to the occupation and the media scrutiny that it entailed, the New Zealand Skeptics have decided against giving these fringe individuals any more airtime or recognition. Instead, we have decided to save our brickbat nominations to those who already have a public profile but have used that influence to further stir the pot of political unrest or have swallowed the kool-aid uncritically and lent the appearance of authenticity to anti-science and conspiracy theory. In contrast, we have decided to award our bouquets to those less-known heroes who have fought tirelessly to expose and document misinformation, disinformation, deception and conspiracy theory; in some cases, in the face of threats to their own lives and wellbeing.

Which brings us to the first of the Bravo awards for 2022. Kate Hannah and Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa have been two tireless workers in the identification, documentation and analysis of misinformation and disinformation in the Aotearoa/New Zealand context with The Disinformation Project. As well as the study and analysis of the growing ‘infodemic', they have contributed their expertise to more than 80 public media stories nationally and internationally in 2022 alone. Although linked by their shared work, Kate and Sanjana are the recipients of individual Bravo awards in recognition of the immense efforts that they and their team have made.

Likewise, we would like to recognize Byron Clarke, a YouTuber, videographer and online commenter who has dedicated a significant amount of time and effort to the online study and combat of the rise of the alt-right in Aotearoa.

Another to receive a Bravo award is the journalist, Marc Daalder. Marc's excellent science-based reporting of diverse subjects on climate change, energy & technology, the COVID-19 pandemic, public housing, the far-right nationalism and violent extremism has been admired by skeptics for some time and is something of a model for fellow journalists.

And finally, a special joint Bravo award goes out to the Stuff Circuit team for their excellent but chilling documentary “Fire and Fury”, documenting the rise of disinformation and violent extremism in New Zealand over the past year, culminating in the occupation in February.

This year, more than any other, the recipients of these awards have had to deal with more than just deflecting pseudoscience and fighting for common sense. In the words of Kate Hannah, they have been subject to “targeted harassment,… emails, phone calls, talking about me online, stalking [of online profiles], stealing photos, posting them, talking about the consequences for myself and for my family”. We, the NZ Skeptics committee, want to acknowledge that these Bravo awards can be a thorny bouquet, but hope that the recipients feel that the recognition and thanks that we present goes some way to mitigating the hurt that they may be enduring.

But this year's triumphs haven't all been just about fighting back the fires of disinformation, far-right nationalism and extremism. One independent journalist has had a series of wins this year; uncovering, highlighting and successfully unseating the leadership of the Arise church, John and Brent Cameron, for their abusive behaviour to less senior church members. He's also highlighted similar unsettling behaviour from other charismatic megachurch leaders, such as City Impact's Peter Mortlock. And he's just released a bizarrely brilliant documentary “Mr Organ”, which while not strictly within the realm of the ‘skeptisphere', highlights the depths that can be uncovered when a journalist notices the frayed threads of ‘things that don't seem quite right' and tugs on those threads to find where they will lead. Hence, we are pleased to announce that the winner of this year's Skeptic of the Year is David Farrier (aka Webworm).

This brings us to our brickbats. As stated earlier, we decided to avoid providing any spotlight to the fringe elements who aim to change the national landscape by spreading mis- and disinformation. They've already had far too much exposure this year. Instead we are reserving these booby prizes to the journalists and other media personalities who really should know better. Those who have had a media profile from an ever-growing-distant position of trust and have fallen down rabbit holes into the Wonderland of disinformation and used their positions to spread it further. The Bent Spoon award is given out to the individual or organization which has shown the most egregious gullibility or lack of critical thinking in public coverage of, or commentary on, a science-related issue. Although there are many ‘worthy' contenders this year, we've narrowed it down to three candidates.

The first worthy mention goes to Liz Gunn, former litigation lawyer, reporter, TV and radio presenter and since the early ‘90's. Yet over the past couple of years she's been fronting for anti-vaccination group Voices for Freedom. Some of her online rants have been spectacular; at one point late last year she blamed an earthquake in the North Island as ‘Mother Nature's retribution for the enforcement of vaccine mandates'.

And Voices for Freedom have been instrumental in the award of the other worthy mention in the race to the Bent Spoon. Melanie Reid, reporter with Newsroom gave an interview with the leaders of the VFF during the Parliamentary protests in late February under the high profile “Newsroom Investigates” banner. What followed has become something of a case-study in uncritical journalism, showing the dangers of attempting to create ‘false-balance' by giving even airtime to both sides of an argument, even if one of those sides displays poor reasoning or a faulty evidence-base to form its arguments. Her uncritical interview made for a cringeworthy watch.

But Melanie's blunder was something of a one-off. And Liz… well her media profile has been waning for at least a decade now. But one media personality has both the sustained media profile and has made an ongoing habit of providing a Platform (literally) for the fringe far-right in the last year. So, the 2022 Bent Spoon award rightly goes to Sean Plunket. Sean was once seen as a hard-hitting, thorough, critically adept investigative journalist with a portfolio that covered TVNZ's Fair Go, TV3's 20/20, and RNZ's Morning Report. So it is dismaying to find that his online media platform The Platform has been giving airtime to the Far-Right Counterspin Media, an opinion-piece streaming channel that seems to be funded and supported by Steve Bannon's GTV network. Much of Counterspin's content amounts to Q-Anon style conspiracy theory and thinly disguised (or sometimes not at all disguised) hate-speech. Sean has also given airtime to other right wing online media personalities such as Chantelle Baker (instrumental in broadcasting propaganda from within the occupation of the parliament grounds) and Jordan Peterson.

In an amusing synergy of the different hemispheres of the skepisphere, Sean has even been accused of defaming our Skeptic of the Year, David Farrier, in a series of Twitter posts in October, and has been outspoken in denouncing ‘Fire and Fury' and the recently released ‘Web of Chaos' as lie-filled media hit pieces.