BAKER CHANTELLE The alternative realities of

• Published date: 09 April 2023
• Publication title: Herald on Sunday

“Out with some local legends that I met a year ago at the amazing Parliament Protest,” she wrote on Twitter, posting a photograph of herself with a group of women pitching in

“So wonderful to connect with loving people who are now getting stuck in and helping out Hawkes Bay.”

Baker entered the disaster zone in the wake of a fundraising campaign to get water to Wairoa, despite relief organisations urging people to send money and stay clear of the area.

In two days, Baker’s media company, Operation People, stated $13,565 was raised and published invoices showing about $750 went on water with the remainder spent on containers in which to store it (about $1700) and helicopters to fly it in. By the time it got there, military desalination plants were producing around three times the amount of water daily.

Baker posted about the success of the water delivery then set about telling stories of the disaster, as did fellow conspiracy influencers “Farmer James”, Lingo Lewi and Mana News Live.

These were also familiar faces from the protest at Parliament. During the 23-days it lasted, they produced footage and stories from inside the protest — a place from which traditional reality-based media struggled to report with Covid-19 spreading and where wearing a mask could earn a death threat and a physical confrontation.

Baker’s empathetic broadcasts from outside the Beehive saw viewers flock to her 100,000-follower Facebook channel. Across that month, more people watched her videos than two mainstream media outlets combined. On the final day of the protest Baker’s livestream views soared to one million.

Stand by to see — and particularly hear — more of Baker. The network Voices for Freedom, which pushes conspiracy theories, has launched Reality Check Radio with Baker as one of its main stars, along with former Act leader Rodney Hide, former Radio NZ newsreader Paul Brennan and former TVNZ newsreader Peter Williams.

It is the New Zealand evolution of an alternative-reality ecosystem seeded before Covid-19 then super-charged by the pandemic.

In the year since the protest at Parliament, Baker has turned the support generated there into a donation stream that has funded a new career.

“Your help has enabled me to leave my full-time job, get better equipment and fly around our country filming important stories,” she told donors mid-year.

That was shortly before jetting to Europe with camera operator and partner Jacob White. There, they went to the $700-a-head Better Way Media Conference in Vienna, the latest in a series of “Better Way” branded conferences described in Vice News as a “who’s who” of “global anti-vax influencers”.

“We really wanted to connect with other like-minded people but also to learn a lot off other people as well,” Baker said in a video shot at the conference. “[We’re going to] connect with people, build some strong relationships internationally.” Baker travelled across Europe interviewing those whose views aligned with the broader alt-right conspiracy movement. Among those was Thierry Baudet, a Dutch nationalist politician whose beliefs include the conspiracy the September 11 attacks were carried out by the US, that the world is controlled by a secret reptile race and that Russian leader Vladimir Putin is “a hero we need”.

“I think it’s fantastic Putin exists,” he tells Baker, casting the war in Ukraine as Russia standing against globalism.

Baker and White went to Ukraine and spoke about the fashion worn by women there, nail salons and restaurants. She was seeing a different Ukraine than that depicted in the media, she said. It was a broadcast taken by some to be pro-Russian, which Baker has denied she is.

While in Europe, Baker and White got engaged, capping a life-changing year.

So here she is in 2023 as one of two full-time staff employed by Operation People producing what looks like news and sounds like news.

Rather, Baker has carved out a niche for herself pushing conservative and alt-right talking points from the US.

And that’s the baggage that travelled with her to Hawke’s Bay, where disaster had struck and the alternative-reality media flocked to join those others reporting on Cyclone Gabrielle.

If you’re looking for a difference, no one in mainstream media was telling disaster-struck, anxious and fearful Hawke’s Bay residents to arm themselves with firearms against looters. Two days after arriving, Baker advised people: “You need a firearm (or two) [because] desperate people will act desperately. Looters often work in crews and if they see you have something they need you are in danger. NZ makes this very difficult however personal protection is essential.”Baker was one of the “Disinformation Dozen” identified by The Disinformation Project, an academic research group that tracks what they consider to be false and misleading claims.

Those dozen alt-news outlets produced 73 per cent of false or misleading New Zealand-based content found on Facebook during the 23-day occupation. On some days, alt-news views equalled or exceeded the views on reality-based media.

By February 2022, Covid-19 mitigation measures such as closed borders and bans on gatherings such as funerals caused anguish to many, exacerbated by conspiracy theories that none of it was necessary.

When the convoy turned up at Parliament, there were many genuine, everyday citizens who wanted the border opened, mandates...