April 16, 2008...6:42 am
Listener’s Diana Wichtel reviews the TV news bulletins and finds they need to get serious
The wonderfully acerbic Diana Wichtel reviews the television news bulletins in the latest Listener. Having recently reviewed One News, 3 News and Prime News for this blog, I read her article eagerly. It is very good.
Like me, Wichtel was unimpressed by the weather man who prances around One News before, during and at the end of the bulletin: “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse could be seen galloping towards Auckland,” she says, “But the six o’clock bulletin would still be heralded by Jim Hickey lunging at the camera with a terrifying leer, going ‘Hello there! Summer has passed the baton to autumn’!”
At least, Wichtel says, Hickey prepares viewers for the headlines, which she describes as delivered in a style that falls somewhere between News of the World and the Mad Butcher. “School battlegrounds! We’ve more fight scenes between our teens! The hits that will make you wince.”
Wichtel found 3 News a better look than One News despite it still leading its main bulletin “with complete twaddle” the day she was reviewing. She notes TVNZ has been crowing about clawing back some of its lost viewers from TV3. “TV3 is a victim of its own success at making some inroads on the monolith. Once, it was the underdog. Now it’s expected to go toe to toe with a highly resourced, charter-funded state broadcaster.”
She says the late bulletins – which I have not watched in years – are not a bad way to get the news without the bells and whistles One and 3 have on their 6pm bulletins, but she is scathing of breakfast television, describing One’s and 3’s efforts there as subtracting from the sum of human knowledge with admirable determination.
“The good news on the news front? Some would say there isn’t any. But at least these days there’s quantity, if not quality. Those driven screaming from the room by the warring mainstream newspeak have Prime News at 5.30pm – perfectly adequate potato peeling fare. On Stratos, there’s Al Jazeera. Sky subscribers can also go global, with BBC, CNN, Fox et al. New digital channel TVNZ 7 has news to burn.”
I admire Wichtel’s determination to watch so many bulletins, breakfast, evening and late. I gave up after watching just the main evening bulletins of One, 3 and Prime just once, and I haven’t been back.
“What’s missing across the local news spectrum is some intelligent analysis of the spew of information flowing from our screens,” she says. “On the rare occasion it happens, you notice.”
For New Zealand to have a truly grown-up news service, she adds, the channels need to get serious. I would argue we used to have a serious, grown-up news service. It went out the window in 1989 when TV3 started and Paul Holmes burst onto TV One. I’m not holding my breath for its return.
The Listener is almost always an intelligent read, quite unlike most of the other publications on the popular section of the magazine racks. I rarely fail to buy a copy and I strongly recommend it. While many articles eventually go online, most, like Wichtel’s, are only available in full in the print edition while the issue they are in is current. Go on, it’s only $3.90.
8 Comments
April 16, 2008 at 8:31 am
As long as the Listener stays in the deathly clutch of the dreadful “I’m don’t parrot my husbands line I am my own person it’s just a coincidence my talking points mirror John Key’s”, the Glenngarry Tory Joanne Black, I refuse to buy it. Its just like that other appalling middle class rag North and South, with the only advantage being it’s inferior print quality makes the Listener better for starting the fire.
I get my revenge on the Listener by hiding it behind the women’s magazines in my local Whitcoulls. Its childish, but it me feel like I am thinking global and acting local.
April 16, 2008 at 4:49 pm
The Listener used to be a must read every week, but like the news it slates, it too has gone to the dogs. Several years ago in fact.
It’s thin, flimsy and lacking in any solid analysis or decent research. And it’s columns are devoid of charm or wit when they used to have both.
The Bulletin may have come from over the Tas but that was a good mag that I had finally just subscribed to when they pulled the plug.
It won’t be replaced by The Listener.
April 16, 2008 at 6:48 pm
“Determination” is not the word I would use in describing Wichtel’s watching of so many news bulletins. Fortitude is perhaps more appropriate.
I had the misfortune to watch a recent broadcast of 60 Minutes and could only wonder at who would be the winner in the race to the bottom.
April 17, 2008 at 9:31 am
I am a Listener subscriber who quite probably doesn’t match their target demographic. I think it is slowly going downhill and lately has felt like a collection of blogs. Arts and Books seems to be picking up again though. I like Joanne Black’s column even though our politics are rather different. Maybe it’s because we both have to deal with My Little Pony infestations. I do wonder if there is a clue to what’s happening with this magazine in Denis Welch’s recent comments “that APN has very little interest in putting resources into the Listener”
http://oppthumb.blogspot.com/2008/03/friendly-fire.html
April 17, 2008 at 9:59 am
Since this covers both the Listener, and pressure over a climate change story, I’m sure you’ll be interested: http://hot-topic.co.nz/2008/04/16/climate-cranks-claim-a-scalp/
Gareth Renowden has a story over the Listener’s environment writer being fired, after writing a story about the Heritage Institute and reporting of climate change.
[Poneke says: Yes, I have put in questions to the editor of the Listener about this, and will report tomorrow on her response.]
April 18, 2008 at 8:49 am
As long as the Listener stays in the deathly clutch of the dreadful “I’m don’t parrot my husbands line I am my own person it’s just a coincidence my talking points mirror John Key’s”, the Glenngarry Tory Joanne Black…
God, Tom, do you listen to yourself? I know it’s a dreadful “middle class” attitude, but I believe women are actually capable of holding jobs and forming opinions without permission slips from the nearest patriarch.
Next time you’re in Whitcoulls, why don’t you leave the Listener alone and stick to the ‘men’s interest’ magazines. You sure sound like you’re exactly the kind of reader Maxim was created for.
April 18, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I have watched with dismay as the Listener gets less like The Guardian Weekly and more like the Womans Weekly, week by week. They have progressively dumbed down their science coverage, from three excellent columnists who worked in rotation last year, not to mention the late and lamented Dave Hansford, so that it is now covered by the very funny but definitely not a science writer Linley Boniface.
April 23, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Carol and others who know the British press,
I miss ‘em! Sure, each paper had its own political leanings, but the international news was excellent and the Sunday papers could keep you going for a week!
Carol, on the subject of science, my favourite magazine for years has been NewScientist, although they were a little better some time ago and in my opinion the UK edition is a slightly better effort than the Australian/Pacific edition we get here.
(Excuse me for branching off topic a little…
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