This is as much an experiment in investigative reporting as it is a thesis. It explores the possibility of carrying out “research journalism” on a specific issue in a New Zealand academic environment, after a failure to complete the mission within newsrooms.

The thesis debates theoretical and practical “restraints” to reporting this conflict and New Zealand’s role in it. Such restraints might include the degree of conservatism and intractability in Western traditions and practices of both the mainstream media, and of the other potential “commentating power”, universities.