Dingbatt:

 

I’ve pretty much given up watching the ‘Barbie and Ken’ show at 6 o’clock (and the magazine shows that follow). I’m tired of looking at reporters ‘on location’ standing outside schools and businesses that are unoccupied and dark. It particularly irked me when we were in level 4 restrictions because it smacked of “Look at me, I’m essential, I’m allowed out”.

 

A classic fluff piece on TV the other night was of an extended family celebrating a woman’s 100 birthday from 20m away in the forecourt of a retirement village. Then the intrepid reporter and camera crew go into an enclosed space with her and interview her. God knows where those media personnel had been, or who they had been in contact with in the preceding two weeks. Family, who care about the woman, stay away. Complete strangers, come on in.

 

Or the media showing police shooing people off Sumner Beach, and then showing a ‘wonderful’ fairy forest where people had attached little fairy houses to tree trunks. Only trouble was they showed people touching them, including little kids, who then stuck their fingers in their mouth.

 

The ‘woke media’ is something I try to avoid. I want news, not opinions.

 

I think, I’ve been locked up too long.

 

When you're dying of thirst in the desert, even brackish water can be refreshing. Unfortunately, what passes as TV 'news' in this country rarely even achieves that level. Completely agree with you on the ridiculous boy/girl presenters, the pointless location shots, stories about nothing, and all the other crap. I watch it only because there is nothing else whatsoever. I have never stopped missing TVNZ 7.