Pushing Back Against the Monsters

The Stuff Circuit documentary Fire and Fury is a confronting watch. But we felt compelled to make it. Here’s why.

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OPINION

You’ll recall the narrative driven (and accepted by many) during the Wellington protest that it was peaceful and had one objective: to end the mandates.

Scratching not too far beneath the surface, though, it was apparent there was an entirely different — and dangerous — agenda.

At Stuff Circuit our role is to investigate matters that are in the public interest, and two things happened around the time of the occupation that got our attention.

First, we saw talk in social media about making the country “ungovernable”. It sounded like a direct threat to democracy. What did it mean? Who were the people saying it and what was their intent?

Second, we started to see extreme violent language, death threats, and the normalising of language not previously used in everyday New Zealand: people talking very publicly about killing authority figures because they didn’t agree with their policies.

We wanted to understand where that had come from and how mainstream it was going; why your auntie or neighbour was putting this stuff on their Facebook page, oblivious and unquestioning as to its origins.

The title frame from the Stuff Circuit documentary.

The title frame from the Stuff Circuit documentary.

Our focus in Fire and Fury is not the protest itself, but rather the key figures behind it. Who are they, where had they come from, what did they believe? Why were they so keen on the protest, what did they gain from it, and crucially, what do they want to happen next? The documentary explores how they had not come haphazardly to this moment: this seemingly disparate group of key figures is strategically interconnected, stronger together.

Our decision to investigate led to months of being mired in online chat rooms and watching their mass-produced content: the most violent misogyny, racism, religious bigotry, transphobia, homophobia, online stalking and harassment.

Full-blown hate, in spades, being tapped into and lapped up on phones and laptops all over New Zealand.

A frame from the Stuff Circuit documentary Fire and Fury, which investigates the influence of conspiracy theories such as QAnon on disinformation in New Zealand.

A frame from the Stuff Circuit documentary Fire and Fury, which investigates the influence of conspiracy theories such as QAnon on disinformation in New Zealand.

And imbued throughout it all, conspiracy theories ranging from the QAnon-driven sinister cabal of paedophiles controlling the world, to the New World Order and the Great Reset Theory. That the pandemic is a guise for world depopulation and the establishment of a tyrannical global government. That the New Zealand government is engaged in democide: the destruction of its own people.

On and on it went. All of it sitting directly alongside and intertwined with disinformation about Covid, vaccines, and the pandemic response, combining to form a vast, dangerous, swirling, nonsensical, paranoid soup of toxicity.

But having decided to investigate, the question remained whether we should report what we were seeing. Why risk amplifying inflammatory and harmful material? Why risk making these people more influential than they would otherwise be? (Side note: it’s creepy watching some of them react when they have been in the news. They love it. They get off on it. It makes them feel important. Did we want to facilitate that?)

There were other reasons not to report, not least of which was the personal harassment which would inevitably come our way — as it does to anyone who works in this field — and has been directed at us (including death threats) for previous work. Massey University research of Stuff staff shows two thirds of our colleagues report experiencing actual violence or threats of violence related to their work — a figure far higher than that reported by journalists globally. (You’ll see in Fire and Fury how people have been provoked to hate journalists. There are real world consequences for that.)

Stuff Circuit journalists Paula Penfold and Louisa Cleave being "escorted" out of the Wellington protest by a protestor who did not want media there.

Stuff Circuit journalists Paula Penfold and Louisa Cleave being "escorted" out of the Wellington protest by a protestor who did not want media there.

So then the fundamental questions became these: How dangerous are these people? (Very.) Does the benefit of exposing what they’re saying outweigh the risk of platforming them? (Yes, but it’s a qualified yes.) What’s the tipping-point here; is this issue of enough significance to our country to warrant our attention? (The answer, in this case, is a resounding yes.The fact that two of the people we investigated are now facing criminal charges is hint enough that the issues are of substance.)

And there was one final question: What was the risk of not reporting?

The more we looked at the volume and scope of their material the more it became clear that not covering these people would not make them go away.

“The lesson of history suggests that if you let far-right groups have the streets to themselves, they don’t just go home because there’s no one to fight. They’ll find someone to fight, someone to beat up. Any uncontested space, they’ll take over,” is how one journalist summed it up for Data & Society’s advice on reporting on extremists, antagonists, and manipulators.

Another said, “People can’t push back against the monsters they don’t know are there,” a new take on an old journalistic maxim we always come back to, that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

But still, how to report the rise of this phenomenon without aiding their cause.

We took many steps to try to achieve a balance.

First, there’s been rigorous consultation with our editors at every stage, and it’s led to decisions we might not normally make. For instance, from the outset we were given dispensation to publish the words of our main protagonists ‘un-bleeped’, in all their vulgarity and violence, their swearing and threats. (You shouldn’t let your children watch the documentary, not unsupervised, anyway.) We didn’t want to sanitise their words because that would risk minimising the danger they represent, and defeat the purpose.

We consulted and followed numerous international journalistic guidelines for what to do — and what not to do — when reporting on dangerous speech.

We listened to those who study this, experts who spoke of the value of inoculation: that

it’s more effective to prevent disinformation gaining a foothold by showing people the context in which it exists, than to try to counter it with facts once people have fallen for it.

A frame from the Stuff Circuit documentary Fire and Fury, filmed when the Wellington protest turned into a riot.

A frame from the Stuff Circuit documentary Fire and Fury, filmed when the Wellington protest turned into a riot.

We even sought advice on the use of particular words and imagery; which were acceptable and which we should omit. We have included some terms and images which would normally be considered highly offensive (because they are), but the experts we consulted told us it was important the public is aware of the full horror of what is being said. Some of the more horrific material was directed against individuals, whom we forewarned so as not to perpetuate the abuse.

All the information we reviewed also helped us take an unusual editorial position: We did not seek to interview the main protagonists, for two reasons. One, they’ve had their say in their endless online videos, chatrooms, and posts, so in this instance, we are providing the balance and context to what they have already said. And two, it would elevate their hateful and dangerous behaviours to a platform equal to the harm being done, in what after all is an infodemic driven by adept manipulators.

In an interview on RNZ in May, Sanjana Hattotuwa of The Disinformation Project explained with great clarity that it’s crucial we understand the phenomenon.

“The producers and how they’re doing what they’re doing, the provenance, the art of what they’re doing, the strategic devices, the tactics, and the highly sophisticated, extremely motivated networks behind all of this,” he said, “this is a tapestry, this is a choreography that one needs to see the script of. [Because] the scale, speed, and scope of what is happening here is unprecedented.”

Fire and Fury shows you that script, and yes, it is confronting. But we hope you understand when you watch why we felt compelled to make it.