Three Snippets: Race in the Classroom, Race and Refugees, and the Media's Supposed Left-Wing Bias

pn493

A recently released report based on a 2012 survey on discrimination has found Maori and Pasifika  teens to suffer more ethnicity-related discrimination from teachers than peers. Higher rates of
discrimination were also reported by teenagers due to their religion, a disability, a health problem or being transgender. Children's Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft said the results echoed what his office had been hearing for at least the past five years

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon has strongly criticised a "racist and discriminatory" policy against refugees from Africa and the Middle East, urging the Government to "fix it and make it fair".The controversial rule explicitly prevents refugees from Africa and the Middle East coming to New Zealand, unless they already have family living here. The refugee quota has been heavily impacted.  "It is not right. No one chooses to be a refugee. To imply that African and Middle Eastern refugees pose a security threat and can slip through the cracks is misleading and reinforces harmful stereotypes," he said

For light relief  and a laugh, read all of Gordon Campbell's article on the claim that the media has a left-wing (sic!) bias. Here's an extract:

"Here’s how the triumph of the left is supposed to have come about: people who become journalists do liberal arts degrees at university and then import the bleeding heart liberal worldviews they learn at the feet of radical left lecturers back into their work in journalism.

"There isn’t much objective research on this subject, but a major study of content in 2012 at the BBC (another alleged hotbed of left wing opinion) showed that (a) Tory politicians outnumbered Labour ones by 50% overall on the BBC News at Six while (b) corporate/banking economists outnumbered trade union economists by a factor of nineteen to one. There is no reason to think the New Zealand figures would be much different.

"In my experience, senior journalists tend to share the world views (and the tax codes) of the corporate chieftains who own the main media outlets, and the middle managers who run them."