All kinds of voices have been saying in response to a news story, I’m sure you know which one I mean, that NZ journalism has hit a new low. There are lines that, once crossed, feel like violations not just of privacy but of basic decency.
I’m not about to defend any of the godawfulness.
But it invites us to consider other questions.
First: Why is so much of the journalism we’re getting today such a terrible disappointment?
How about this? News organisations are a shadow of what they were and they are left with too few reporters being asked to produce too much clickbait pap, and it all looks as though it will only keep getting more dire.
Second: why will a certain kind of person forever thrive on tawdry gossip and the poking of noses into places they have no business being?
How about this? They’ve been dismal and deplorable for the longest time. They were there in gin-soaked London, they were there at the French Revolution, they were made welcome and rich in the Murdoch newsrooms. That shit always has a market.
Third: is this post-truth world in which media now works, with its amplifying algorithms, only making the whole thing ten times worse?
How about this? Yes.
When the economic model depends on keeping people angry or afraid or smugly reassured, standards collapse.
Meanwhile, the so-called legacy media outlets ie the ones that used to be fat with ads and solid on their journalistic wall of independence make an almost tragic farce of presenting both sides. In truth, it is undue deference to all the wrong people, all the wrong vested interests and all the wrong arguments.
Be sure to come back tomorrow to read what happens next.
Discussion about this post
Alison Kroon Alison KroonMar 18
Thank you. I will indeed report in tomorrow!
LIKE (10)REPLYSHAREDan McKirdy Parking the SharkMar 18
There was a time when NZers would have been so repelled by
The attack on Chris Hipkins that they would have voted Labour in droves.
Sadly, that does not appear to be true anymore.
What in the name of Jesus have we become?
When things become this bad it is tempting to think we are at the end of days.
Our societies appear to be rotting at the core and only a complete clean up will root out the disease.
But the cost for us will be tragic.
I this writing from the ED at Wellington Hospital and watching the real human dramas unfolding around me.
A young boy has just had a seizure and the alarm in his room is going off. Virtually all the staff have rushed to his aid,
upwards of twenty people showing amazing empathy and love.
This is us.
But is it enough?
“God bless us every one!”
