Stuff and The Disinformation Project Try to Shame Whitcoulls Away from Selling 'Conspiracy' Magazine
January 2, 2023
PHOTO: Justin Wong/Stuff
Nationwide bookstore Whitcoulls is selling a magazine peddling a number of anti-vax conspiracies and insinuating the Christchurch mosque terror attack was a “false flag” operation.
The Lambton Quay store in Wellington had copies of two issues of New Dawn magazine for sale this week. It was also spotted in another Wellington store, Johnsonville, and at New Lynn in West Auckland.
One issue features a two-page article about the Christchurch mosque gunman, suggesting he wasn’t the perpetrator of the 2019 terror attack that claimed the lives of 51 Muslim worshippers. He was sentenced in August 2020 to life without the possibility of parole on 51 charges of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder and a charge of committing a terrorist act.
Kate Hannah, director of The Disinformation Project, a research group monitoring Covid-19 disinformation, said some of the commentary in New Dawn was borderline in legality.