Right to Life is concerned about a recent article in the New Zealand Herald entitled “Covid 19 vaccine creator believes Delta variant will eventually ‘reach everybody who is not vaccinated‘, was published in the September 10th edition of the Herald. It was not the headline that concerned us, but content within the article which we regard as promoting discrimination against those who choose not to receive an experimental treatment. Right to Life has filed a formal complaint with the editor of the Herald.Clearly those persons who choose not to take the government’s experimenal “vaccine” are a minority group and are in this article the subject of comments that are not only discriminatory but in our opinion hateful. The statements indicate that the quoted writer believes that the unvaccinated should be virtually locked away from society. The NZ Herald has a responsibility to the public to avoid publishing articles which espouse discrimination and hate towards a group of people and the content of this article far exceeds what is acceptable.
Hello Mr O’Brien, thank you for your email.
The article contains various perspectives and reactions to comments made publicly by Sarah Gilbert. Her credentials are not in dispute and she is entirely qualified to express views on the danger that Covid-19 poses to the unvaccinated.
Their comments do not relate specifically to New Zealand, but are general opinions.
In relation to vaccinations and the workplace in this country we have already reported on a failed employment action taken by a Customs worker and the Employment Relations Minister’s comments that employers can require staff to be vaccinated.
We do not accept that the article encourages discrimination.
We also do not believe that anti-vaxxers and science deniers are specifically afforded protection under the Media Council’s principle 7 in relation to ‘diversity’.
Accordingly your complaint is rejected.
Best wishes
Thank you for continuing to speak up. Since when has a reputable editor used inflammatory expressions like “anti vaxxer” and “science denier’? Where is the science?
Excellent work, I also recently wrote to a senior editor at the Herald over bias and distortion of the truth, my email was civil but was met with arrogance and a posture of “we’re untouchable”. I do not know what happened to journalistic integrity. Imagine if an ethnic group like Maori or Pacific Islander were to give ethical/spiritual reasons for not taking the injection, and people started saying we won’t work with that particular ethnic group or allow them in our business. You would almost certainly be censored and even possibly arrested for hate speech. The double standards are disgusting.