News in brief
Welcome to February. The over-long period of holiday disruption is behind us. Those who went off to improve their skin tans are now returned. Those who achieved the same result by staying at home will have noticed how swiftly the Cambridge main streets filled with traffic again, cafes bulging at the seams and a general appearance of commercial success layered over the area. I appreciate that some retailers have been hurting over recent months but the clear display of patrons fleeing restaurants in the main cities does not appear to have landed here.
Peter Carr
And Cambridge generally is not dependant on imported overseas labour where the government appears muddled as to how to balance those who clearly want work and those who lounge under the generous umbrella of WINZ payments.
Interestingly the government owned TV1 has great trouble recognising that the year is already five weeks under way and has, reluctantly apparently, recreated the morning breakfast time news show. What other major country closes off its mainstream news broadcast / political commentary for seven weeks so that the very well-paid presenters and their supporting staff can have a break? And when it does return (this week I believe) will we still be subject to the unprofessional babble that masquerades as journalism?
Do we have to depend only on the excellent newsreaders at 6pm on weekdays or their very professional counterpart at the weekends? Personally, I would far rather have some more serious and balanced input from a Campbell / Gower / Holmes level of thinkers rather than light-handed rhetoric. But we are all different as the current production bathes in the glory (and safety) of having beaten off their TV3 opponents.
So, what constitutes real news – and to what extent, as taxpayers, should we expect to be satisfied by the totally government owned, now sole, morning ‘news’ channel? Clearly news collation and dissemination of an honest and accurate nature is getting harder to put together. Why else could Stuff have been purchased for the princely sum of a single dollar? Why are other mainstream organs being forced to shed staff – in the main driven by advertisers turning away from the medium? Are the production owners making it too hard to advertise? And why did one of them in particular take the poisoned chalice of a previous government handout to keep afloat? On a spurious cause at that. And why was it necessary for a large number of (freely distributed) local weekly print organs to bite the dust pre-Christmas?
Something is clearly wrong in the Fourth Estate. Perhaps driven by a coterie of ‘journalists’ who persist in rude, repetitive interruptions during interviews and clearly positioning their desired resultant output in a single political direction? How many more times does the Prime Minister have to make it clear that the much trumpeted and divisive Act Treaty bill will not reach past a second reading?
Many people are turning from their TV to computer screens for real news wherein they become open to false information driven by schemers with a different focus and desired result. Honest and practical journalism is at least alive and well in this busy tabloid that hits your mailbox each week. But the editorial team only get one chance a week to put their case and balance the news. So greater pressure needs to come onto those journals (paper or screened) that have the opportunity of a 24 hours per day output.
Put it there! Front page Cambridge News February 29, 2024
