Is Winston Peters right to call state-funded journalism ‘bribery’ – or is there a bigger threat to democracy?

Winston Peters had only just been sworn in as deputy prime minister when his long-standing antipathy to the news media emerged in the form of a serious accusation.

Referring to the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) set up under the previous Labour government (and no longer operating), the NZ First leader claimed “you can’t defend $55 million of bribery”.

He demanded the press gallery “tell the public what you signed up to, to get the money”. And he went on to question the independence of publicly owned media operators TVNZ and RNZ.