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Ed Said - Haven’t we heard it all before?

 

dadFor many years my bedside radio switched on around 6am or so to hear the early morning report from the National Radio station, nowadays RNZ National. It purported to deliver up-to-date news, views and interviews across the worldwide spectrum until I finally woke up (pardon the pun) to the fact that all I was hearing was propaganda. Much of the overseas news was inconsequential and local interviews were designed to score points for the interviewer. Usually a male and a female announcer cum journalist cum reporter invited us to listen to ‘up-to-the-minute’ reports and insisted ‘we ask the hard questions’.

To balance any subject one must talk to both factions, the pros and the cons. When both parties were interviewed at once it simply became a talkfest of one interrupting the other. When a party was ‘interviewed’ by he who would ‘ask the hard questions’ the interviewer persistently interrupted the subject apparently probing for answers to said ‘hard questions.’  I enjoy hearing interviews where pertinent, intelligent, well-thought-out questions are asked resulting in entertainment and the gaining of information. However Kiwi radio jocks tend more towards interrogation and trying to trip a subject up or get them to contradict themselves rather than seeking information.

Interviewer, repetitive: “Please just answer the question, did you or didn’t you?”

Subject: “Well, I would answer the question if you would stop interrupting me.” 

Or Interviewer: “You said you were going to do such and such, so, were you lying?” 

And of course, politicians will never answer a question with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ anyway.

After some years of this I finally felt sick and tired of waking up feeling sick and tired and starting my day annoyed by what I had subjected myself to, so out went the bedside radio.

News coverage every hour, on the hour was destined for the same fate. Hearing the midday pips pricked my ears up and I was an avid listener of the midday report over a long period. Ditto the six o’clock news on TV. The former has met its demise and the latter is closer than it would like to know, possibly replaced by The Simpsons. I can actually relate to the impish Bart and several of the other characters.

Of course, what I previously got from radio I can now read on my smart phone but I’m besieged daily by Trump this and Trump that, and the Boring British Brexit debacle. Today I read headlines: “I’m a Wreck,” says Kiwi Star; PM donkey deep in sex scandal, Ardern defends Labour’s botched complaints process; $20million alcohol advertising account; axe attack after drinking four dozen beers; teachers in dire shortage; ‘feisty’ Princess Charlotte given nickname at kindergarten; and a whole raft of meaningless, inane headlines designed to attract attention but incite little more than nausea in yours truly.

Husband and wife family members who work long hours will see none of such news items but their lives are busy, productive and most of all, happy without having to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders – and still the world turns and the sun comes up daily. Our thirst for knowledge seems to have been overtaken by social media and information we don’t need and cannot put to any use. Knowledge is one thing but wisdom and understanding are something else entirely.

Rob

 
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