Wednesday, November 23, 2011

News Teams REALLY Onto It! NOT!

Ain't it reassuring to know, when ya pick up a newspaper or - more likely these days - Google the latest news, that the reporting agencies are right on top of a situation.
After all, that's what they're there for: to - keep - us - informed.
So I was most relieved to be told by TVNZ last Sunday 20 November that the cargo ship Rena, stranded as it has been off Tauranga since early October...IS ON A LEAN.
*Shock! Horror! Probe!* Ok, maybe it was a slow news day...or perhaps the news sub had only just cottoned on to the fact that Rena has been on a severe cant for six weeks now!
So, TVNZ appears to be 1½ months behind the times...but Stuff.co.nz has got that beaten hands down! Yesterday (Tues.22 Nov.) I was told by Stuff that "Khmer Rouge trio accused of Cambodia's worst horrors".
No shit, Sherlock! It wasn't Huey, Dewey and Louie! This happened in the 1970s, and that's the best headline you can come up with NOW? Ahhhhh, maybe the journo wasn't even born then...this may be all NEW to him/her! *sigh* 
Surely journalists or sub-editors can come up with far more relevant and accurate headlines than these?!! That is after all their job, their responsibility...
But wait, here's another from yesterday, via NZ Herald:
Surely the core of the story is not that Little Timmy didn't really mean to hurt his mate when he tried his knife out on his arm. Any half-decent journo would have followed the real thread, which is: WTF was Little Timmy doing with a knife at school in the first bloody place?!!! 
Are journalists these days simply writing column inches...are they still capable of actually hunting out the real story? I wonder...

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