News needs balance

Official Photographers in Corryong, Victoria, Australia in 2010 at The Man From Snowy River Festival. Photo / Christopher Cape

When I began this week's column my ideas seemed pertinent and timely but the global scene changes so fast I wonder if my observations are outdated before the ink is dry.

Out of level 2 and into level 1. It has only been 14 days! It feels like years. The world has gone crazy. Mind you, if you want fascinating spectacle, reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum and games under Nero. Political expediency. Give the plebs bread and circuses. They'll never question anything let alone stopping the games. Where oh where is reason, objectivity and balance in all this?

Allow me an amateur lesson in media politics. The media is a business. It requires money for wages and expenses and technology to operate. As news messenger, its noble goal used to be to impartially keep the public informed on life events. Its ignoble role is to provide the money merchants (the advertisers) with prey to feed on (that's us).

Entertain the masses and snare them for the merchants who have bought the right to control media airtime, thereby allowing the media machine to keep operating. Where does unbiased objective news attitude fit? It dies, suffocated by the need to gain public notoriety and ratings.

So it is that we, the viewers, are subjected to fodder ranging from TV3 clowning around in white and TV One purporting to be the voice of the nation to President Donald Trump accusing the press of being purveyors of fake news. The styles of presentation make discernment of true narrative and balanced story hard, at times, to fathom.

On Saturday, June 13, ABC News (Australian Broadcasting) claimed that New Zealand was now free of Covid-19 and that the bars were open. Really?

The bars are open but frankly, I have my doubts about being free of the virus. New Zealand TV has suddenly dropped nearly all reference and advertising about precautionary health measures. It's all rugby, flag-waving and beer with caution lost to the wind.

The pundits of progress are trumpeting the new freedoms of markets and economic recovery. The NZ media currently seems to be myopic, obsessed with the local economy.

Their narrative infers that the pandemic no longer exists. That is very Trumpian and Bolsonaroic.

Now, a week on, look how things change. New Covid cases here, thousands infected overseas. I think the NZ government had been doing a sterling job but I suspect election pressures shifted the resolve to maintain strict health measures.

Complacency has crept in. I'm concerned about the lax quarantine enforcement in hotels and the easy entry of Americas Cup teams, Avatar film crews, and others.

My real point is this. There seems to be a lack of reporting perspective putting New Zealand on the global stage. Few medical and scientific voices are given airtime now.

Where are the objective commentators? Where are the analytical scientific voices on New Zealand news channels to offer advice and perspective? Some people are scared of what's happening, such as the woman I spoke with in the supermarket.

The world has gone crazy with pent up frustration. Covid is now rampaging through Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, India, and resurging in China. India is beating up China.

North Korea is refusing to speak to South Korea about the colour of its balloons. People are marching and fighting in the streets because of human rights issues, smashing statues and destroying hard-won history. Isn't it all a bit childish and expensive?

Recently I heard of a scientist commentator who was interviewed. The earth, he said, needed to be healed. There were too many humans on the planet. I suspect he was right.

Al Jazeera recently mentioned a global death toll, attributable to the pandemic, of 30 million, so HG Wells may well have been right. If we are not wise we will end up like his Martians in War Of The Worlds – eliminated.

These are incredible times and media channels have a responsibility, an opportunity, to provide a broad, well-focused picture for us plebs. Some of us are not impressed by circuses but it may well be, that I've become too closely focused on this. Perspective is probably best gathered from a variety of media sources and ultimately, of course, I can switch it off and stay sane.