Editorial: Do we really need to push the boundaries quite so far

Linda Hall, Assistant Editor, Hawke's Bay Today.

I was glad to read that one of the key findings of the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) 2018 survey on offensive language in broadcasting was that strong swear words are still unacceptable, no matter what the content.

Thank goodness for that.

In today's world of television programmes such as Naked Attraction and Californication, which premiered on last week, it's nice to know that most of us still have some standards.

I am by no means a prude and have heard just about every expletive known to mankind and uttered a fair few of them myself.

However, I believe there is a time and a place for everything.

I can remember when I first started writing my column, Middle NZ, and included a swear word. It wasn't a bad one but one of our readers complained about it so I have never done it again.

Everyone has their own level of what's offensive and what's not — we need to be mindful of that.

The latest controversy over Californication has seen Burger King, CRC, Finish Dishwashing Liquid, Cadbury, Flight Centre and Ferrit axing their advertising from the show which, reportedly, features sex scenes, nudity, teenage drug use and bad language. It's the teenage drug use that rings alarm bells with me.

We can all argue that if you don't like it, turn it off. But that's not the point. The show is on at 9.30pm and no matter how much we say that it's the responsibility of parents to monitor their children, sometimes that simply doesn't happen.

Sometimes there are no parents home to monitor children.

Our children are exposed to so much these days, do we really need to have it on our TV screens?

Everyone wants to push the boundaries so far now.

Take the swimsuit model breast-feeding her baby on the catwalk.

Yes, I understand what she's trying to say and that it was a stunt to gain publicity about not being ashamed to breastfeed in public and I wholeheartedly agree.

It's a natural and beautiful thing to do but, as I said earlier, there is a time and a place for everything.

There's also nothing wrong with a bit of discretion — not everybody in the room needs to, or wants to, know what's going on.