TVNZgnorance

Russian tycoon announces to the Guardian that he is plotting the overthrow of the Russian state. Kasparov is arrested, and the Putin government orders demonstrators off the streets, and sends riot police to beat and arrest protesters.

This story has been unfolding for the last few weeks, but for some reason the local television news media don't consider these events worthy of reporting. Instead, New Zealanders are being subjected to major news headlines about a mentally unstable South Island woman who made up a rape allegation.

While TVNZ gets rid of 60 front-line current affairs staff, their 6pm news show is close to completing a full-scale transition from journalism to inane filler content that merely exists to prop up the interests of their corporate advertising clients. I have no interest in watching this garbage, but a lot of people still do - TV1 is a New Zealand institution, and the public deserves better than this.

TVNZ's lack of respect and graciousness towards its staff and its audience continues to disgust me. In a connected internet media era, television news producers need to provide their viewers with broadcasting of real substance and quality. If they continue to demonstrate such total disregard for scale and global context, their market share is going to continue declining ever more rapidly.