For the last week the news media have indulged in a frenzy of feeding on this item. The papers serve up all the salacious details possible or permitted, the National Programme bombards us hourly with the latest breathtaking details, and the TV programmes have endless interviews with anyone remotely connected with the defendant.  Hours of paid journalist time.

Meanwhile, lots of what should be on the news media goes unreported, because it’s too much effort to research and write about, and it’s not going to immediately get audience attention. Even though, two minutes later, the item that got audience attention will just disappear into the general fog of our over-informed minds and memories, sinking without trace.

Whereas many items that never make it to the news to be commented on, could have a lasting effect on our way of looking at life, and, over time, transform us for the better. No-one is going to pretend that the above item transforms the reader in any way at all. It’s just yet more sleaze.

This same New Zealand preoccupation with sexual matters was very evident earlier this year when there was another media feeding frenzy over whether an Asian lady had sent Dr. Worth thirty five or thirty six inappropriate emails, and whether or not they had gone to a hotel together, for purposes in reality unknown by all the writers, who did not let this little detail deter them in any way from making lurid assumptions. Again, we had it on TV, on the radio – endlessly – and in the newspapers.

Reading, watching or listening to this stuff does none of us any good. It  weakens the moral fibre of our youth, who have the right to be exposed to good-quality news and journalism. We should not kid ourselves that other countries have such deplorable journalistic standards.  Countries such as Brazil, to which we tend to feel superior, have news journalism relatively free of what really is little more than commentary on sleaze.

Be Sociable, Share!

•