Journalists (in New Zealand at least)

Now I don't know what it is like with journalists in other countries, but in New Zealand, something is going seriously wrong with the way they go about their jobs, or maybe it has always been happening and I have only started caring recently.. either way, it is damn annoying.

I don't have any journalist training, so I don't know if this is how they are trained, but my idea of their profession is that they should be there to research and present facts, not opinion. And if they do really need to present opinion, they shouldn't be sharing their own, but the ones they do share should be shared in a way that represents both/all sides of the story! I am so tired of news programmes in NZ trying to have bias, but not being able to make up their mind on which bias that is, they sort of just end up presenting stories which say "the government did this, which is bad. But the opposition was offering this.. which is also bad.. now, a story about ducks". STOP TRYING TO EMULATE AMERICAN NEWS! Our left and right wing parties don't lean that far in their respective directions, certainly not far enough to warrant news programmes with political favouritism.

But then, if they don't succeed in having a political bias, they decide it isn't worth having actual news on the news. Instead, they have a sop story, where someone got ripped off by someone or lost something or got kicked out of somewhere, accompanied by a tear jerking musical number and the most one sided investigative journalism the world has ever seen. Case and point, Close Up. Which is comprised entirely of stories like this. Designed to tell people what they are pre-disposed to hearing to provoke an emotional reaction (and a sense of satisfaction about the fact that someone on television agrees with their views eg. animals are good, activists are good, humans are bad, zoos are bad, aquariums are bad, corporations are bad, builders are bad, governments are bad). An example of this, tonight on Close-Up they were doing a story about NZ's national museum (Te Papa), who came out today saying that they would recommend that pregnant or menstruating women do not go on a behind-the-scenes tour of a Maori exhibition so to respect some cultural beliefs.. they weren't saying you can't, just that if you are pregnant or menstruating and want to respect their beliefs, you shouldn't.. but, mind you, only for that one behind the scenes tour, the rest of the museum is fine. However, in the build up to Close-Up tonight, we hear Mark Sainsbury's voice yelling "Tonight, why has our national museum told women to stay away!?!"..... Fuck you, Mark Sainsbury. You are an abomination, and yet you get praised as one of our top journalists?

Really, all I want is to be able to sit down and watch actual, well researched, news stories from New Zealand and from around the world presented to me in factual and non-bias way, preferably with an attempt at showing both sides of a story. Instead I get sensationalised news stories for 15 minutes, and then articles which can best be described as un-news-worthy crap for the next 45. But I am not sure who to blame. Is it us for putting so much pressure on them with ratings, or by having short attention spans? Maybe if we took away the yearly 'Best News Show' award, they might just stop fishing for ratings and start presenting the facts.

(Although, if you are in New Zealand and want good news, Prime News at 5.30 is pretty good. Short and, in my opinion, far superior to channel 1 or 3's news.)