CN Offers Work to NZ Editor Suspended for Ukraine Edits

UPDATED: Consortium News is extending a job offer to ex-Radio New Zealand editor Michael Hall, who was suspended for editing Reuters copy to reflect the facts in Ukraine. 

Earlier this month, Consortium News reported that an editor at Radio New Zealand (RNZ) was suspended for editing Reuters copy that actually inserted correct facts about the war in Ukraine.

According to a report in The Guardian Australia, the editor, who has been identified as Mick Hall, edited stories to accurately reflect the context of the war. 

“The articles in question made a range of amendments: adding the word ‘coup’ to describe the Maidan revolution; changing a description of Ukraine’s former ‘pro-Russian president’ to read ‘pro-Russian elected government’; adding references to a ‘pro-western government’ that had ‘suppressed ethnic Russians’; and on several occasions adding references to Russian concerns about ‘neo-Nazi elements’ in Ukraine.” 

And more truth was added to the story, The Guardian inadvertently says:

“In one article, a paragraph was added reading: ‘The Kremlin also said its invasion was sparked by a failure to implement the Minsk agreement peace accords, designed to give Russia speakers autonomy and protection, and the rise of a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine since a coup ousted a Russian-friendly Ukrainian government in 2014.’

Another added that Russia launched its invasion ‘claiming that a US-backed coup in 2014 with the help of neo-Nazis had created a threat to its borders and had ignited a civil war that saw Russian-speaking minorities persecuted.’”

These are facts that Consortium News has been reporting since 2014 — but which establishment media has been suppressing — including these two exhaustively corroborated accounts: On the Influence of Neo-Nazism in Ukraine and Evidence of US-Backed Coup in Kiev. 

While RNZ’s investigation continues, Hall resigned from his job. He would have a home at Consortium News. So that’s why we are making a public pronouncement that we hope reaches him:  You are welcomed to work as an editor at CN. Contact us at [email protected] .

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25 comments for “CN Offers Work to NZ Editor Suspended for Ukraine Edits

  1. D'Esterre
    June 28, 2023 at 21:58

    I’m very pleased that CN is offering work to Michael Hall.

    It sounds as if it’s RNZ’s loss. But on the bright side, nobody (including RNZ’s management, it seems) reads its website stories, whereas many of us who want to know what’s going on in the world read CN.

    Welcome, Michael Hall! I hope that you do take up the offer.

  2. Andrew Nichols
    June 28, 2023 at 17:14

    On NZ media bingeing on foreign news narratives
    hxxps://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2306/S00040/on-the-media-bingeing-on-foreign-news-narratives.htm

  3. Herman
    June 28, 2023 at 11:20

    Did writer change the report or note his disagreement? Disagreement is fine. Changing content is not.

    • Consortiumnews.com
      June 28, 2023 at 12:11

      It’s called editing. Wire service copy is routinely edited.

  4. YesXorNo
    June 27, 2023 at 18:37

    Bravo

  5. Burke Hunter
    June 27, 2023 at 06:01

    It would be wonderful if he worked for you. It would be wonderful for him to work where his journalistic skills of presenting balance in reporting could be respected. Sadly this is what RadioNZ presents now Reuters/ US view. Alas for New Zealand / Aotearoa as we’re pulled further to the right

  6. DD
    June 26, 2023 at 22:29

    In today’s weekly Monday morning interview of Ray McGovern by Andrew Napolitano, Ray McGovern stated unequivocally that the CIA, FBI and other intel operators were behind the murder of JFK and that after 10 years at the agency he came to understand that the “other side of the turnstile,” which I understood to mean the operational wing of the agency was a “nest of assassins.” This video is now deleted from Youtube.

    • robert e williamson jr
      June 26, 2023 at 23:17

      DD :>| Thanks for the heads up.

      The way I look at the response by UTUBE is simply they do not get it. It’s the typical “boot-licker’s” response kindled by fear of not supporting the party line.

      Thanks CN

    • Tony
      June 27, 2023 at 07:41

      “On November 5 (1971), (President) Nixon announced he wanted to reorganise the nation’s intelligence system…which essentially put all the nation’s intelligence agencies under greater White House control. … (Melvin) Laird and the Joint Chiefs rebelled, as did (Richard) Helms and the CIA.” (“Nixon’s Gamble” by Ray Locker, page 140).

      I believe that it was this decision that finally led the CIA to decide to assassinate Nixon in early 1972. When that plan failed, the Plan B was to use Watergate to ruin him. I do not believe that Nixon had any prior knowledge of the break -in.

      Frank Sturgis confirmed CIA plans to assassinate Nixon in his 1977 interview with Bill O’Reilly which is still available on YouTube.

      This is what was said:

      “Was Richard Nixon ever in any physical danger?”

      Sturgis: “Yes, absolutely. He’s lucky he did not get killed. He’s lucky he did not get assassinated like President Kennedy got assassinated.”

    • mgr
      June 28, 2023 at 03:35

      DD: Thank you. I saw it too. Great interview. It is still there. You just have to keep scrolling down a number of pages.

  7. Marika Czaja
    June 26, 2023 at 21:27

    Dear CN, Just to make sure Michael Hall hears of your generous offer, I have emailed your article to ‘Newsroom’, asking them to forward it to Michael. Best wishes, Marika

  8. Bill Todd
    June 26, 2023 at 20:06

    I wonder whether New Zealanders are actually as ‘gullible and stupid’ as their government and media suggest they are (quote I can’t find again right now) about accepting the garbage that those entities unload on them (not that the U.S. population is much better in that regard). If so they can ill afford the loss of journalists like Mick Hall.

    Interestingly, New Zealand’s political attitudes have until recently appeared to be somewhat fragmented as is suggested by hxxps://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/491788/nz-entering-ukraine-conflict-at-whim-of-govt-former-labour-general-secretary

  9. Lois Gagnon
    June 26, 2023 at 19:50

    Thank you CN for reaching out to this courageous journalist. His addition to this very valuable news site will make it stronger and reach an even wider audience. The empire apologists whether they realize it or not, are sowing the seeds of their and their paymasters’ destruction.

  10. Richard Romano
    June 26, 2023 at 19:22

    It amazes me that any peep of truth is destroyed by the powerful. We have lost all morality. And they/we have lost our soul.

  11. JohnO
    June 26, 2023 at 17:36

    Everybody pause. Look around. We are in a time of major flux. Since billionaires have wrested the House, Senate and Oval Office from the people, and scoured their media of all honesty, we are totally dependent on the labors of independent journalists! Everyday the desperation of the nervous state is evident in its inability to be forthcoming, to come into the light. The mark of fascism is the vanquished impulse to speak plainly.

  12. bardamu
    June 26, 2023 at 16:47

    Bravo (again) to CN and (I must presume for now) to Mick Hall.

    How lucky we are that a few journalists remain at the watch when these corporate and heritage outfits have abandoned profession, post, and ethics.

    The field that opened so greatly with the advent of the Net and of two-way communications has been closing dangerously across the English-speaking world. It seems so few years ago that I was told to misspell words so that emails would not trigger the attention of surveillance bots and so that posts would not be deleted or otherwise.

    We have arrived now, though maybe the difference is that things have become so obvious that even I must recognize it. Honest craftspeople making a trade of this in 2023 must have unusual character.

    • Dr. Hujjathullah M.H.B. Sahib
      June 26, 2023 at 19:07

      I am happy to ditto your points. Absolutely plausible move by CN deserving the salute of any and everyone responsible !

    • Andrew Thomas
      June 26, 2023 at 21:28

      Amen.

  13. Roger Milbrandt
    June 26, 2023 at 12:54

    I commend CN for this adroit and considerate move.
    Also, this article does a good job of showing that the edits offered by this unfortunate individual were factual rather than partisan or tendentious.

  14. CaseyG
    June 26, 2023 at 12:40

    I, too hope that the NZ person continues to write what so much of the world, including America lacks–TRUTH

    • Carolyn L Zaremba
      June 26, 2023 at 13:01

      The lack of truth is monumental in the United States. If not for CN and others like Ben Norton, Garland Nixon, Aaron Mate, the Duran and Scott Ritter, those of us who follow politics and world events would not know what is actually going on, both inside the U.S. and the rest of the world. I recently engaged with a reader of the local newspaper about the criminality of the Biden regime, only to be met with what could be a script written by CNN or Fox News. I am appalled at how many people here (California) either swallow mainstream media dreck word for word (Democrats thinking they are progressive) or are completely ignorant of events taking place as recently as three years ago. Thank goodness for CN!

      • Rob Roy
        June 26, 2023 at 22:48

        Ditto.

      • Mary Lynne Dempsey
        June 27, 2023 at 22:33

        Delighted to see that a NZ journalist was responsible enough to introduce some balance into the US propaganda inflicted on the collective west through our mainstream media. Well done Mick Hall. We are so proud of you! At a prestigious celebration gathering including a number of NZ’s top legal fraternity and judiciary, plus leading figures in the film and theatre industry I recently made it my mission to ask each person I met to tell me what they knew of the origins of the Russia Ukraine conflict. Not one person mentioned NATO’s declared intention to grant membership to Ukraine. In fact no one knew anything – maybe some vague reference to Russian imperialism. No one knew anything about Julian Assange either (my follow up question). This just illustrates how brainwashed NZers are by our msm and why RNZ went into a frenzy when they heard that a little suppressed truth had slipped through!
        And yes, without independent academics and journalists like Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Col McGregor, Scott Ritter, Chris Hedges, the Grayzone, the Duran, Brian Berletic of the New Atlas and other platforms like Consortium News – we would be swimming in a lake of ignorance in NZ.

      • Tim
        June 28, 2023 at 10:07

        Carolyn, I sympathize with you. A person I love greatly, an 85 y/o newspaper and printed history-book reader, recently asked me if I was either a communist or an anarchist. My crime? I not only “dared” to challenge his beliefs on events in the U.S. and abroad, but also challenged his never-ending Republican-good, Democrat-bad belief system. The possibility that BOTH could be corrupt, beholden to the MIC and the bankers, supported by a slanted media, and with the 3-letter agencies as enforcers, agitators and judges rolled into one – well, that opinion was too much for him.

        This is MY lesson from the situation. Some people will wake up on their own, some will need to be shaken up, some will need to be thrown off the cliff, and unfortunately, some will sleep until the very end. I can say my piece, but afterwards must move on. Then, one day after many discussions “about the weather”, we might hear something like this – “You know, I just read that we know that George H.W. Bush was in Dallas on the day that Kennedy died, but he ‘didn’t remember’ what he was doing that day. But I remember what I WAS DOING when I heard the news that JFK was killed!” That’s when we know that we should TRY AGAIN.

        Take care!

  15. Valerie
    June 26, 2023 at 09:51

    That’s very magnanimous of CN. I hope the “suspended” editor sees this. I’m sure somehow by the “grapevine” it will come to his attention.

Comments are closed.