There’s been quite a debate going on at www.pundit.co.nz about media coverage of the Christchurch earthquake and its aftermath. More specifically, the debate is about whether television footage and newspaper photos of injured, shocked and grieving people amounted to an invasion of personal privacy. (My own daughter, looking at pictures of quake victims, wondered how their families would feel about some of the more intimate shots.)
Pundit blogger Tim Watkin, a news producer at TVNZ, argued that graphic coverage was necessary to convey the enormity of the event. In essence, he reasoned that the right of the affected individuals to privacy was trumped by the interest of the wider population in seeing what had happened.
Media law and ethics specialist Steven Price, a barrister who has worked as a journalist, took a slightly different view. In his blog at www.medialawjournal.co.nz he used the term “QuakePorn” and said the repeated screening of “highlights” packages showing injured and distraught people crossed the line. “Someone make them stop,” he pleaded.
All this led to a thoughtful discussion on TVNZ7’s The Court Report, again featuring Watkin and Price, this time with a panel of lawyers and a law academic. Price said most of the news coverage was professional and responsible, but some made him squirm – a view that got support from panellists. Price said he had also felt uncomfortable about some of the footage showing the grieving families of Pike River miners. But Watkin, while accepting that individuals had suffered from the intense media scrutiny, argued that explicit footage was necessary to connect the rest of the country with what was happening. He said (and I don’t think anyone could argue) that the news coverage was a key factor in uniting the nation behind the people of Christchurch in their time of anguish. He also suggested that the media owed it to history to record events in the raw.
This touched off a spirited, but again thoughtful, discussion on pundit, all of which demonstrates that the debate over the right to individual privacy versus the public right to know is a vexed one that may never be wholly resolved.
As Price pointed out, it’s an area of the law that is still evolving. Journalists have traditionally assumed that they were free to report, film or photograph whatever happens in public, but that assumption was overturned in a landmark court case brought by broadcaster Michael Hosking and his estranged wife in 2003. The Hoskings wanted to stop New Idea from publishing photos taken of their twin daughters in a busy Auckland shopping mall. The case went to the Court of Appeal, which unanimously ruled against the Hoskings but took the opportunity to refine privacy law, perhaps in recognition of the increased boldness of the media in pushing the boundaries.
The court held in a majority decision (opposed by two dissenting judges who believed there were already adequate protections in place) that there was a common law right to privacy, and that people could sue the media in situations where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy and where the publication of “private facts” would be highly offensive. This was seen as opening the way for litigants to sue even in cases where the media had reported, photographed or filmed something that happened in public.
How that judgment will play out in practice is still uncertain, but at least theoretically it suggests that Christchurch earthquake victims could sue TV networks or newspapers for screening footage or publishing photos showing them in distress (though a more likely course would be to complain to the Broadcasting Standards Authority or Press Council).
Even setting aside legal considerations, the ethical dilemma remains for the media (and is not new, since it arises to a greater or lesser extent almost every time a photographer takes pictures of disaster victims, or even of dazed people at the scene of a car crash or house fire). To what extent is publication justified by the public’s right to know? There is no clear, sharp line. It’s always a matter of judgment in which sensitivity for the victims must be balanced against legitimate public interest in the event. The balancing factors may even include the size of the community, since people subjected to publicity in a small town will feel a lot more exposed than those in a big, relatively anonymous city.
These judgments often have to be made in haste, under intense time pressure. As I wrote in The Right To Know: News Media Freedom in New Zealand: “News depends on immediacy – that is its essence – and journalists do not always enjoy the luxury of time in which to deliberate as academics can in university common rooms, or judges in their chambers.” (Or, I might have added, media critics on TV programmes and blogs.)
Things get even more complicated when, as in Christchurch, television is broadcasting a live feed. There’s no time for ethical debates in the control room; the image of a hideously injured or even dead victim may be out there before anyone realises. Steven Price acknowledged this on his blog when he said “we should cut news crews some slack when they’ve got to edit on the hoof”.
It’s also an unfortunate fact that editors do not have gift of prescience. No one was to know, when photos were published of injured baker Shane Tomlin being pulled from the rubble, that he would die. In fact several days passed before his fate was known. (A similar tragic case occurred in the 1970s when Dominion photographer Barry Durrant took a dramatic picture of a stabbing victim being helped by passers-by on a Wellington footpath. The paper agonised over whether to publish the photo but did so, having been told the young man had survived the attack. Unfortunately, by the time the paper came out, he was dead.)
My own view about the Christchurch coverage, for what it’s worth, is that it was mostly within the bounds of acceptability, given the scale of the catastrophe and the intense public interest. I agree with Tim Watkin that it’s not the job of the media to protect the public from reality. I also agree with him that, as uncomfortable as it may be, those caught up in such disasters must pay the price for society’s interest (and I don’t mean mere curiosity) in seeing the damage wreaked on human beings as well on property. As someone pointed out on the pundit blog, if photographers had put their cameras away on entering liberated World War Two concentration camps, out of sensitivity for the victims, we would have had no pictorial record of Nazi inhumanity. But it’s a fine line, and there is a point at which repeated screening of the same footage starts to morph into the exploitative disaster porn that Steven Price complained about.
Showing posts with label Christchurch earthquake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christchurch earthquake. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Were the experts too reassuring?
Further to my earlier post on the apparent failure to warn Christchurch of the possibility of a further quake almost equal in intensity to the one of September 4:
On September 10, GNS issued a statement headlined: Textbook aftershock sequence, seismologist says. It quoted GNS seismologist Warwick Smith as saying the number and size of aftershocks at that point, six days after the 7.1 magnitude quake, was in line with expectations. The frequency was already declining rapidly but they were likely to continue for some time yet.
“What we are seeing in Canterbury is pretty much a textbook aftershock sequence. They won’t get smaller in a hurry, but they are already getting much less frequent.” (Christchurch residents, having endured thousands of aftershocks in the following months, might quibble with that assessment.)
Dr Smith did say there was still a possibility of an aftershock larger than those experienced so far, but the chances of this happening were decreasing by the day.
In his celebrated interview last week with “moon man” Ken Ring, TV3’s John Campbell referred to a statement by GNS back in September that mentioned the possibility of a magnitude 6 aftershock. A reader named Phil, who commented on my post below, mentions a similar statement, made by the same Warwick Smith to TVNZ on September 7, in which Dr Smith said: “There is … kind of a rough rule that the biggest aftershock is something like one magnitude unit less than the main shock. So we could be looking at a magnitude six I’m afraid.”
So where does this leave us? I suggested in my earlier post that the big aftershocks that followed the Napier and Masterton earthquakes of 1931 and 1942 should have alerted experts to the possibility of another upheaval almost equal in intensity to the September 4 event.
To be fair, the 7.3 Napier aftershock happened only 10 days after the primary quake, while the 7.0 Masterton aftershock followed the main event by five weeks. In the case of Christchurch, the time difference was far greater: five and a half months. So it was possibly well outside the period when previous experience suggested we could expect a severe aftershock.
Still, you have to wonder whether the official statement from GNS, which said aftershocks would continue but emphasised that they were likely to decline, was both premature and a little too reassuring in its tone. Even Dr Smith’s statement about the possibility of a magnitude 6 aftershock was buried well down in the TVNZ story – admittedly not Dr Smith’s fault, but I still can’t help thinking the experts could have been more forthright in warning people of the risk. It almost looks as if they were playing it down while still covering themselves by not entirely ruling it out.
I followed the media closely in the weeks following the September 4 quake and can recall no statements that would have braced Christchurch residents for what they experienced on February 22. Perhaps the authorities didn’t want people panicking unduly.
I’d be interested in the views of Christchurch people. Did they feel the official warnings were adequate? Or did they prefer not to know what was theoretically possible, realising the result could have been complete paralysis?
I guess what it all adds up to is that seismology remains an inexact science, that events don’t necessarily comply with the textbook, and that with each major quake scientific understanding advances just a little bit further. At least one hopes so.
It's important to acknowledge that it's easy to be wise after the event. Nonetheless, I still think the inquiry will be justified in asking why no more explicit warnings were given about the possibility of a really severe event – rather than just an unnerving one – following September 4.
On September 10, GNS issued a statement headlined: Textbook aftershock sequence, seismologist says. It quoted GNS seismologist Warwick Smith as saying the number and size of aftershocks at that point, six days after the 7.1 magnitude quake, was in line with expectations. The frequency was already declining rapidly but they were likely to continue for some time yet.
“What we are seeing in Canterbury is pretty much a textbook aftershock sequence. They won’t get smaller in a hurry, but they are already getting much less frequent.” (Christchurch residents, having endured thousands of aftershocks in the following months, might quibble with that assessment.)
Dr Smith did say there was still a possibility of an aftershock larger than those experienced so far, but the chances of this happening were decreasing by the day.
In his celebrated interview last week with “moon man” Ken Ring, TV3’s John Campbell referred to a statement by GNS back in September that mentioned the possibility of a magnitude 6 aftershock. A reader named Phil, who commented on my post below, mentions a similar statement, made by the same Warwick Smith to TVNZ on September 7, in which Dr Smith said: “There is … kind of a rough rule that the biggest aftershock is something like one magnitude unit less than the main shock. So we could be looking at a magnitude six I’m afraid.”
So where does this leave us? I suggested in my earlier post that the big aftershocks that followed the Napier and Masterton earthquakes of 1931 and 1942 should have alerted experts to the possibility of another upheaval almost equal in intensity to the September 4 event.
To be fair, the 7.3 Napier aftershock happened only 10 days after the primary quake, while the 7.0 Masterton aftershock followed the main event by five weeks. In the case of Christchurch, the time difference was far greater: five and a half months. So it was possibly well outside the period when previous experience suggested we could expect a severe aftershock.
Still, you have to wonder whether the official statement from GNS, which said aftershocks would continue but emphasised that they were likely to decline, was both premature and a little too reassuring in its tone. Even Dr Smith’s statement about the possibility of a magnitude 6 aftershock was buried well down in the TVNZ story – admittedly not Dr Smith’s fault, but I still can’t help thinking the experts could have been more forthright in warning people of the risk. It almost looks as if they were playing it down while still covering themselves by not entirely ruling it out.
I followed the media closely in the weeks following the September 4 quake and can recall no statements that would have braced Christchurch residents for what they experienced on February 22. Perhaps the authorities didn’t want people panicking unduly.
I’d be interested in the views of Christchurch people. Did they feel the official warnings were adequate? Or did they prefer not to know what was theoretically possible, realising the result could have been complete paralysis?
I guess what it all adds up to is that seismology remains an inexact science, that events don’t necessarily comply with the textbook, and that with each major quake scientific understanding advances just a little bit further. At least one hopes so.
It's important to acknowledge that it's easy to be wise after the event. Nonetheless, I still think the inquiry will be justified in asking why no more explicit warnings were given about the possibility of a really severe event – rather than just an unnerving one – following September 4.
Why weren't they warned?
Assuming there’s an inquiry into the damage caused by the February 22 Christchurch earthquake, it will no doubt want to consider why no warning appears to have been given, after September 4, of the likelihood of another big shake.
It’s not as if there were no precedents. The famous Napier earthquake of February 3 1931, which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale, was followed only 10 days later by another of 7.3 magnitude. And the 7.2 magnitude quake that struck Masterton on June 24 1942 was followed on August 2 by another that registered 7.0. In both cases, the second jolt was more severe in some localities than the first.
Despite this, I don’t recall any seismologist suggesting Christchurch should brace itself for a follow-up quake that could almost match the September 4 event for intensity. Certainly there were the usual warnings of aftershocks, but the advice was that these would taper off over time.
The February 22 quake caught Christchurch off-guard – but would the city have been so unprepared if people had been reminded of the Napier and Masterton double-whammies?
It’s not as if there were no precedents. The famous Napier earthquake of February 3 1931, which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale, was followed only 10 days later by another of 7.3 magnitude. And the 7.2 magnitude quake that struck Masterton on June 24 1942 was followed on August 2 by another that registered 7.0. In both cases, the second jolt was more severe in some localities than the first.
Despite this, I don’t recall any seismologist suggesting Christchurch should brace itself for a follow-up quake that could almost match the September 4 event for intensity. Certainly there were the usual warnings of aftershocks, but the advice was that these would taper off over time.
The February 22 quake caught Christchurch off-guard – but would the city have been so unprepared if people had been reminded of the Napier and Masterton double-whammies?
Saturday, March 5, 2011
No rulebook - that's why Jane Bowron delivers
There’s a very good letter in today’s Dominion Post complimenting Jane Bowron on her dispatches from the Christchurch quake zone. Peter Wells of Napier (I presume the Peter Wells who is himself a writer) says of Jane’s writing:
"She hits just the right note, with wry observational humour and insight. She doesn’t big-note emotionally but the pain, bewilderment and determination to keep on going are all there. She would have made a first-rate war reporter."
I agree. And I reckon a crucial factor - perhaps the crucial factor - that sets Jane’s pieces apart from most others about the quake and its aftermath is that she had no formal training in journalism. In fact she twice failed to get into journalism school.
She eventually got into journalism via the old reading room at The Dominion – long legendary as a sanctuary for all manner of colourful, Bohemian characters. When the advent of digital technology rendered proofreaders redundant in the late 1980s, Jane was one of those who opted to retrain as a sub-editor (though I suspect the training was pretty rudimentary). It was from there that she drifted into writing, where she has found her true metier.
She was never schooled to write in the orthodox journalistic manner, and I believe that’s the key to her idiosyncratic style. She’s not bound by any rules. She writes with an individualistic eye and an undisciplined spontaneity that would have caused journalism tutors to recoil in horror. But it works.
It’s a common conceit among “proper” journalists that we’re the only ones competent to report tragedies such as Christchurch, but Jane demolishes that myth. As Peter Wells suggests, she would have done a great job at the siege of Madrid or in the London Blitz.
Footnote: Mention of Jane’s futile attempts to get into journalism school reminds me of the time in the early 1980s when I spent several weeks running a feature-writing course at what was then the Wellington Polytechnic journalism school (now part of Massey University). When the course was finished, the full-time journalism tutors eagerly questioned me on which of the 25-odd students I thought stood out. When I told them, their mouths fell open in astonishment. The student who most impressed me was one they’d virtually written off as a no-hoper. His name was Steve Braunias.
I sometimes wonder how many talented people have been lost to journalism since training shifted from the workplace to academic institutions. It doesn't bear thinking about.
"She hits just the right note, with wry observational humour and insight. She doesn’t big-note emotionally but the pain, bewilderment and determination to keep on going are all there. She would have made a first-rate war reporter."
I agree. And I reckon a crucial factor - perhaps the crucial factor - that sets Jane’s pieces apart from most others about the quake and its aftermath is that she had no formal training in journalism. In fact she twice failed to get into journalism school.
She eventually got into journalism via the old reading room at The Dominion – long legendary as a sanctuary for all manner of colourful, Bohemian characters. When the advent of digital technology rendered proofreaders redundant in the late 1980s, Jane was one of those who opted to retrain as a sub-editor (though I suspect the training was pretty rudimentary). It was from there that she drifted into writing, where she has found her true metier.
She was never schooled to write in the orthodox journalistic manner, and I believe that’s the key to her idiosyncratic style. She’s not bound by any rules. She writes with an individualistic eye and an undisciplined spontaneity that would have caused journalism tutors to recoil in horror. But it works.
It’s a common conceit among “proper” journalists that we’re the only ones competent to report tragedies such as Christchurch, but Jane demolishes that myth. As Peter Wells suggests, she would have done a great job at the siege of Madrid or in the London Blitz.
Footnote: Mention of Jane’s futile attempts to get into journalism school reminds me of the time in the early 1980s when I spent several weeks running a feature-writing course at what was then the Wellington Polytechnic journalism school (now part of Massey University). When the course was finished, the full-time journalism tutors eagerly questioned me on which of the 25-odd students I thought stood out. When I told them, their mouths fell open in astonishment. The student who most impressed me was one they’d virtually written off as a no-hoper. His name was Steve Braunias.
I sometimes wonder how many talented people have been lost to journalism since training shifted from the workplace to academic institutions. It doesn't bear thinking about.
Friday, March 4, 2011
It's time to ease off
Is it time the media started scaling back the coverage of the Christchurch earthquake and its aftermath? I think so.
The saturation coverage is inescapable. It’s overwhelming and threatens to become oppressive.
It is also wearing thinner as journalists have to search harder for new angles. As time goes by, reporters will inevitably be tempted to keep the quake drama running by sexing stories up with tacky sentiment that demeans the victims of the tragedy.
I’m not suggesting the major media organisations suddenly pull all their reporters out of Christchurch. It will continue to be a running story for weeks. But the time has come to start giving space to the other important issues have been shunted aside over the past two weeks.
In saying this, I'm not backing away from my previous comments about the crucial role of the media at times like this. As in so many things, it's all a matter of balance.
After 10 days, the wall-to-wall quake coverage is in real danger of inducing reader, viewer and listener fatigue. When the radio news bulletins vary little hour after hour, you know the story is running out of legs.
Radio New Zealand National, for instance, is still running half-hourly bulletins throughout the night. That was justified in the immediate aftermath of the quake, when the story was changing constantly and there was a huge public appetite for information, but it now seems gratuitous.
Besides, it may be time to give Christchurch some respite from a relentless 24/7 media scrutiny that at times hovers on the edge of being voyeuristic.
The saturation coverage is inescapable. It’s overwhelming and threatens to become oppressive.
It is also wearing thinner as journalists have to search harder for new angles. As time goes by, reporters will inevitably be tempted to keep the quake drama running by sexing stories up with tacky sentiment that demeans the victims of the tragedy.
I’m not suggesting the major media organisations suddenly pull all their reporters out of Christchurch. It will continue to be a running story for weeks. But the time has come to start giving space to the other important issues have been shunted aside over the past two weeks.
In saying this, I'm not backing away from my previous comments about the crucial role of the media at times like this. As in so many things, it's all a matter of balance.
After 10 days, the wall-to-wall quake coverage is in real danger of inducing reader, viewer and listener fatigue. When the radio news bulletins vary little hour after hour, you know the story is running out of legs.
Radio New Zealand National, for instance, is still running half-hourly bulletins throughout the night. That was justified in the immediate aftermath of the quake, when the story was changing constantly and there was a huge public appetite for information, but it now seems gratuitous.
Besides, it may be time to give Christchurch some respite from a relentless 24/7 media scrutiny that at times hovers on the edge of being voyeuristic.
Christchurch shows us the best and the worst
(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, March 2.)
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens’ famous opening line from A Tale of Two Cities referred to the turbulent period of the French Revolution, but he could almost have been describing last week’s terrible events in Christchurch.
Such catastrophes bring out the best and worst in humanity. The worst would include the scum who burgled the home of TV presenter Donna Manning while her children maintained a vigil outside the collapsed CTV building where she was missing, presumed dead. Christchurch has always had more than its share of lowlifes and it was probably inevitable that some would seize this opportunity to go on a thieving spree.
Not quite as bad, but still contemptible, were the Christchurch dairy I heard about that wanted $15 for four litres of milk and the airline (not Air New Zealand) that was charging $800 for a flight to Sydney.
Fortunately the instances of vile behaviour were greatly outnumbered by tales of courage and heroism by both victims and rescuers. As the days passed, stories emerged of people staying with trapped and injured colleagues rather than saving themselves, and of emergency workers and volunteers risking their lives by mounting rescue attempts in unstable buildings that could have come crashing down at any moment.
Newspaper photographs and television footage showed rescuers working like men possessed in their determination to free total strangers. On the TV news I saw a young Maori or Polynesian man lift what looked like a massive slab of concrete off a victim, and I gazed in awe at a newspaper photo that showed firefighters checking the lower storeys of the Pyne Gould building while the upper floors teetered at a crazy angle above them, threatening to collapse on them with the next aftershock.
At such times, most of us ask ourselves how we might respond in such a situation, either as victims or as potential helpers. The truth is that we don’t know until we’re put in that position, and most of us have no desire to find out.
On a less dramatic note we learned of instances where people did simple, neighbourly things. One man with an artesian well in his backyard piped water through to the street where others could help themselves, and I particularly liked the story of the woman who still had a power supply so ran leads out to the front of her house and invited people to recharge their cell phones or boil electric jugs.
Students and farmers put their shoulders to the wheel, clearing away the foul-smelling silt that clogged streets and properties.
Such basic, practical acts of help restore our faith in our fellow human beings and demonstrate an underlying social cohesion where it’s not always visible. It’s a shame that it takes a crisis to bring that community spirit to the fore, but at least it’s there when we most need it.
Businesses weighed in too. Air New Zealand provided $50 fares to and from Christchurch from any airport in New Zealand. Fonterra installed massive vats in strategic locations around the city and filled them with fresh water carted by its fleet of milk tankers. On radio, I heard a Coca-Cola delivery contractor say that the drinks company had dispatched a convoy of trucks from Auckland carrying bottled water for free distribution.
Goodwill flowed copiously from overseas too. All-night hosts on Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB read out a steady stream of text and email messages from every corner of the planet, offering sympathy, prayers and encouragement. On the website of the Boston Globe newspaper, a dramatic display of quake photos attracted hundreds of comments – again, from multiple countries – expressing solidarity with the people of Christchurch.
There were other aspects of the quake to take encouragement from. The national news media rose to the occasion, as they usually do when there’s a big story to focus on rather than the familiar diet of crime, political conflict and banality (though by week’s end, television was back to its usual tricks, gratuitously trying to pluck at our heart strings).
Just as he was last September, Christchurch mayor Bob Parker was an inspirational civic leader, working his heart out and always composed, upbeat and articulate. The Peter Principle famously states that people rise to their level of incompetence, but there must be a reverse rule that says some individuals grow in stature and respect as greater responsibility is placed on them. If so, the former TV front man is one of them.
The prime minister was impressive too. Not only did his natural empathy shine through, but like Helen Clark, he’s quick to grasp the detail of a complex situation and assess its implications. At times like this we see why John Key was successful in the fast-moving, high-stakes world of international currency trading.
So in terms of the human response to the tragedy, the good far outweighs the bad. But what, if anything, can we learn? And what of the future?
To answer the first question, one potential benefit is that New Zealanders will be made much more aware of the need to prepare for natural disasters. Expect a run on hardware and outdoor stores as people quake-proof their homes, buy water containers and lay in emergency rations. But human nature being what it is, the effect is unlikely to last long.
As for the future, pessimists are talking as if it’s all over for Christchurch, but that’s the immediate shock speaking. People are resilient. Christchurch will rebound. There is too much invested in the city to let it die.
One possible outcome, though it may be too much to hope for, is that the awful effects of the quake will serve to unify and galvanise us, instilling a needed spirit of cohesion in a country where sectional interests and political gamesmanship too often retard progress. Pulling together in a time of crisis could have a transformational effect, both socially and economically.
The brutal shock that the Christchurch quake will undoubtedly deliver to the economy might even rouse New Zealanders from their long Rip Van Winkle slumber, shake off their complacency and get them focused on generating wealth rather than consuming it. Now that would be something.
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens’ famous opening line from A Tale of Two Cities referred to the turbulent period of the French Revolution, but he could almost have been describing last week’s terrible events in Christchurch.
Such catastrophes bring out the best and worst in humanity. The worst would include the scum who burgled the home of TV presenter Donna Manning while her children maintained a vigil outside the collapsed CTV building where she was missing, presumed dead. Christchurch has always had more than its share of lowlifes and it was probably inevitable that some would seize this opportunity to go on a thieving spree.
Not quite as bad, but still contemptible, were the Christchurch dairy I heard about that wanted $15 for four litres of milk and the airline (not Air New Zealand) that was charging $800 for a flight to Sydney.
Fortunately the instances of vile behaviour were greatly outnumbered by tales of courage and heroism by both victims and rescuers. As the days passed, stories emerged of people staying with trapped and injured colleagues rather than saving themselves, and of emergency workers and volunteers risking their lives by mounting rescue attempts in unstable buildings that could have come crashing down at any moment.
Newspaper photographs and television footage showed rescuers working like men possessed in their determination to free total strangers. On the TV news I saw a young Maori or Polynesian man lift what looked like a massive slab of concrete off a victim, and I gazed in awe at a newspaper photo that showed firefighters checking the lower storeys of the Pyne Gould building while the upper floors teetered at a crazy angle above them, threatening to collapse on them with the next aftershock.
At such times, most of us ask ourselves how we might respond in such a situation, either as victims or as potential helpers. The truth is that we don’t know until we’re put in that position, and most of us have no desire to find out.
On a less dramatic note we learned of instances where people did simple, neighbourly things. One man with an artesian well in his backyard piped water through to the street where others could help themselves, and I particularly liked the story of the woman who still had a power supply so ran leads out to the front of her house and invited people to recharge their cell phones or boil electric jugs.
Students and farmers put their shoulders to the wheel, clearing away the foul-smelling silt that clogged streets and properties.
Such basic, practical acts of help restore our faith in our fellow human beings and demonstrate an underlying social cohesion where it’s not always visible. It’s a shame that it takes a crisis to bring that community spirit to the fore, but at least it’s there when we most need it.
Businesses weighed in too. Air New Zealand provided $50 fares to and from Christchurch from any airport in New Zealand. Fonterra installed massive vats in strategic locations around the city and filled them with fresh water carted by its fleet of milk tankers. On radio, I heard a Coca-Cola delivery contractor say that the drinks company had dispatched a convoy of trucks from Auckland carrying bottled water for free distribution.
Goodwill flowed copiously from overseas too. All-night hosts on Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB read out a steady stream of text and email messages from every corner of the planet, offering sympathy, prayers and encouragement. On the website of the Boston Globe newspaper, a dramatic display of quake photos attracted hundreds of comments – again, from multiple countries – expressing solidarity with the people of Christchurch.
There were other aspects of the quake to take encouragement from. The national news media rose to the occasion, as they usually do when there’s a big story to focus on rather than the familiar diet of crime, political conflict and banality (though by week’s end, television was back to its usual tricks, gratuitously trying to pluck at our heart strings).
Just as he was last September, Christchurch mayor Bob Parker was an inspirational civic leader, working his heart out and always composed, upbeat and articulate. The Peter Principle famously states that people rise to their level of incompetence, but there must be a reverse rule that says some individuals grow in stature and respect as greater responsibility is placed on them. If so, the former TV front man is one of them.
The prime minister was impressive too. Not only did his natural empathy shine through, but like Helen Clark, he’s quick to grasp the detail of a complex situation and assess its implications. At times like this we see why John Key was successful in the fast-moving, high-stakes world of international currency trading.
So in terms of the human response to the tragedy, the good far outweighs the bad. But what, if anything, can we learn? And what of the future?
To answer the first question, one potential benefit is that New Zealanders will be made much more aware of the need to prepare for natural disasters. Expect a run on hardware and outdoor stores as people quake-proof their homes, buy water containers and lay in emergency rations. But human nature being what it is, the effect is unlikely to last long.
As for the future, pessimists are talking as if it’s all over for Christchurch, but that’s the immediate shock speaking. People are resilient. Christchurch will rebound. There is too much invested in the city to let it die.
One possible outcome, though it may be too much to hope for, is that the awful effects of the quake will serve to unify and galvanise us, instilling a needed spirit of cohesion in a country where sectional interests and political gamesmanship too often retard progress. Pulling together in a time of crisis could have a transformational effect, both socially and economically.
The brutal shock that the Christchurch quake will undoubtedly deliver to the economy might even rouse New Zealanders from their long Rip Van Winkle slumber, shake off their complacency and get them focused on generating wealth rather than consuming it. Now that would be something.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Who knows what we might be capable of?
It’s perilously close to a cliché to say that we have seen New Zealand at its absolute best during the past nine days. The way in which people all over the country (and overseas too, for that matter) have rallied in support of quake-stricken Christchurch is inspirational. The city’s own courageous and resilient response, save for the actions of a few contemptible looters, inevitably evokes comparisons with London during the Blitz.
At times like this, a very basic part of our national character reasserts itself. We are still a small, intimate and inter-connected society. Beneath the veneer of cosmopolitan sophistication that we like to think we have acquired Рthe designer-label, latt̩ culture Рthere remains a stubborn residual trace of our resourceful, do-it-yourself colonial past, when isolated communities really did have to pull together to survive. We saw this in the way the farmers came to town with their trucks and tractors to clear away the vast quantities of silt that choked streets and sections.
The comparison might seem trite, but a similar, we’re-all-in-this-together spirit was evident in the telethons of the 1970s and 80s that, for one weekend each year, united the country in an orgy of fundraising for worthy causes. They wouldn’t work now; far too innocent and gauche. Yet that admirable, generous trait survives in the New Zealand psyche.
The politicians seem to grasp this, judging by the absence of point-scoring since February 22. Phil Goff has essentially backed what the government has done in the immediate aftermath of the quake, clearly recognising that there are times when political differences must be put aside in the national interest. Whether that political consensus will survive as the government starts exploring longer-term options to help meet the estimated $15-20 billion cost of the disaster – for example, winding back Working For Families and interest-free student loans – is another matter.
What many New Zealanders must earnestly wish for, naive as it may seem, is that the current national mood – the shoulders-to-the-wheel spirit that has temporarily silenced political bickering and suppressed the customary lobbying of sectional interests – might somehow be sustained. Even before the quake struck, this was a country with serious problems, notably a chronically under-performing economy and massive debt. What has happened over the past nine days has given us a lot to think about. It has taught us a lot about ourselves, or at least reminded us of national qualities we were at risk of forgetting. If the current spirit of unity in crisis could somehow be harnessed and brought to bear on New Zealand’s longer-term challenges, who knows what might be accomplished?
At times like this, a very basic part of our national character reasserts itself. We are still a small, intimate and inter-connected society. Beneath the veneer of cosmopolitan sophistication that we like to think we have acquired Рthe designer-label, latt̩ culture Рthere remains a stubborn residual trace of our resourceful, do-it-yourself colonial past, when isolated communities really did have to pull together to survive. We saw this in the way the farmers came to town with their trucks and tractors to clear away the vast quantities of silt that choked streets and sections.
The comparison might seem trite, but a similar, we’re-all-in-this-together spirit was evident in the telethons of the 1970s and 80s that, for one weekend each year, united the country in an orgy of fundraising for worthy causes. They wouldn’t work now; far too innocent and gauche. Yet that admirable, generous trait survives in the New Zealand psyche.
The politicians seem to grasp this, judging by the absence of point-scoring since February 22. Phil Goff has essentially backed what the government has done in the immediate aftermath of the quake, clearly recognising that there are times when political differences must be put aside in the national interest. Whether that political consensus will survive as the government starts exploring longer-term options to help meet the estimated $15-20 billion cost of the disaster – for example, winding back Working For Families and interest-free student loans – is another matter.
What many New Zealanders must earnestly wish for, naive as it may seem, is that the current national mood – the shoulders-to-the-wheel spirit that has temporarily silenced political bickering and suppressed the customary lobbying of sectional interests – might somehow be sustained. Even before the quake struck, this was a country with serious problems, notably a chronically under-performing economy and massive debt. What has happened over the past nine days has given us a lot to think about. It has taught us a lot about ourselves, or at least reminded us of national qualities we were at risk of forgetting. If the current spirit of unity in crisis could somehow be harnessed and brought to bear on New Zealand’s longer-term challenges, who knows what might be accomplished?
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
A reminder of how much we need the media
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, March 1.)
JOURNALISTS cop a lot of flak, some of it justified, but the events of the past week have demonstrated how heavily society relies on the media in times of crisis.
Radio, in particular, comes into its own. Its immediacy, broad reach and accessibility make it invaluable as a means of quickly getting vital information across to an anxious public.
Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB did a sterling job in Christchurch. The flow of information was nonstop, much of it provided by reporters who, like those in the emergency services, had their own gnawing worries about family, homes and friends. They just had to put these aside.
Police and journalists have a generally uneasy relationship, but even the most media-averse police officer grudgingly acknowledges that the media are indispensable at such times, just as they are when the police need help from the public to solve crimes.
But it wasn’t only hard news and practical advice that radio conveyed. In the middle of the night when people were feeling frightened and alone, the voice in the darkness offered a sense of connectedness and a reassuring feeling that they were not totally isolated. Messages of support and encouragement from around the world, read out regularly by radio hosts, must also have boosted morale.
And what of the other media? Television stepped up to the mark too, though I felt sorry for the journalists from TVNZ’s Christchurch newsroom who, having performed admirably in the vital hours immediately after the quake, seemed to get shunted aside by “star” reporters dispatched from Auckland.
One of the refreshing aspects of the earthquake coverage was that journalists emerged as real human beings, emotionally affected by the tragedy like everyone else, but getting on with the professional job of describing it. The sheer enormity of what they were reporting meant that for a few days, the professional mask slipped – and they looked all the better for it.
As for the print media, it was the turn of those old warhorses, the news photographers. The most powerful and telling images of the Christchurch tragedy weren’t on television or radio; they were in the papers.
In future decades when people want to understand the drama, the terror, the heroism and the anguish of Christchurch, they will turn to the newspaper pictures.
* * *
“I CAN’T think of a more effective backbencher than [Sue] Bradford. She got a record three private members’ bills passed into law. My favourites were abolishing the discriminatory youth wage and, of course, the anti-smacking bill.”
So wrote trade unionist Matt McCarten in a recent Herald On Sunday column in which he commented on speculation about the formation of a new hard-Left party involving him and Bradford.
Yep, you have to hand it to Bradford. By making inexperienced young workers unaffordable to many employers, the abolition of the youth wage consigned thousands of teenagers to the dole queue. What a triumph.
And the anti-smacking bill that McCarten regards as such a milestone? It was passed against the wishes of 80 percent of the public, which says everything about the Left’s respect for the will of the people (though it should never be forgotten that National was complicit in this abuse of democracy).
The ultimate insult is that Bradford was able to accomplish all this even though she represented no electorate and rode into Parliament on the back of a party that never commanded more than 7 percent of the vote.
But she was effective, all right. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any MP who did more damage in a shorter time.
* * *
I WAS SO impressed by the following sign in a car park near the entrance to Raglan Harbour that I wrote it down.
It was headed “Bar Crossing Safety (Wainamu Beach Access)” and read as follows:
“The Transit Zone as per the navigation safety bylaw is reserved for the purpose of ensuring safety in crossing the bar at the entrance to the harbour.
“All power driven vessels transiting the area must maintain their course.
“No kite surfers or board sailors operating in this area shall obstruct or impede the path of any transiting vessel.”
I presume this means that boats coming in and out of the harbour shouldn’t change course and that kite surfers and board sailors shouldn’t get in their way. But I had to read the sign several times before I could decode it.
It’s that unfamiliar word “transiting” that causes the reader to stumble. It’s a classic, cumbersome bureaucrat’s word.
No doubt some council functionary with a clipboard felt well pleased with himself at having conveyed an essentially simple message in the most complicated way possible, but how many foreign kite surfers and board sailors had narrow misses because they couldn’t understand the sign is anyone’s guess.
JOURNALISTS cop a lot of flak, some of it justified, but the events of the past week have demonstrated how heavily society relies on the media in times of crisis.
Radio, in particular, comes into its own. Its immediacy, broad reach and accessibility make it invaluable as a means of quickly getting vital information across to an anxious public.
Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB did a sterling job in Christchurch. The flow of information was nonstop, much of it provided by reporters who, like those in the emergency services, had their own gnawing worries about family, homes and friends. They just had to put these aside.
Police and journalists have a generally uneasy relationship, but even the most media-averse police officer grudgingly acknowledges that the media are indispensable at such times, just as they are when the police need help from the public to solve crimes.
But it wasn’t only hard news and practical advice that radio conveyed. In the middle of the night when people were feeling frightened and alone, the voice in the darkness offered a sense of connectedness and a reassuring feeling that they were not totally isolated. Messages of support and encouragement from around the world, read out regularly by radio hosts, must also have boosted morale.
And what of the other media? Television stepped up to the mark too, though I felt sorry for the journalists from TVNZ’s Christchurch newsroom who, having performed admirably in the vital hours immediately after the quake, seemed to get shunted aside by “star” reporters dispatched from Auckland.
One of the refreshing aspects of the earthquake coverage was that journalists emerged as real human beings, emotionally affected by the tragedy like everyone else, but getting on with the professional job of describing it. The sheer enormity of what they were reporting meant that for a few days, the professional mask slipped – and they looked all the better for it.
As for the print media, it was the turn of those old warhorses, the news photographers. The most powerful and telling images of the Christchurch tragedy weren’t on television or radio; they were in the papers.
In future decades when people want to understand the drama, the terror, the heroism and the anguish of Christchurch, they will turn to the newspaper pictures.
* * *
“I CAN’T think of a more effective backbencher than [Sue] Bradford. She got a record three private members’ bills passed into law. My favourites were abolishing the discriminatory youth wage and, of course, the anti-smacking bill.”
So wrote trade unionist Matt McCarten in a recent Herald On Sunday column in which he commented on speculation about the formation of a new hard-Left party involving him and Bradford.
Yep, you have to hand it to Bradford. By making inexperienced young workers unaffordable to many employers, the abolition of the youth wage consigned thousands of teenagers to the dole queue. What a triumph.
And the anti-smacking bill that McCarten regards as such a milestone? It was passed against the wishes of 80 percent of the public, which says everything about the Left’s respect for the will of the people (though it should never be forgotten that National was complicit in this abuse of democracy).
The ultimate insult is that Bradford was able to accomplish all this even though she represented no electorate and rode into Parliament on the back of a party that never commanded more than 7 percent of the vote.
But she was effective, all right. I’d be hard-pressed to think of any MP who did more damage in a shorter time.
* * *
I WAS SO impressed by the following sign in a car park near the entrance to Raglan Harbour that I wrote it down.
It was headed “Bar Crossing Safety (Wainamu Beach Access)” and read as follows:
“The Transit Zone as per the navigation safety bylaw is reserved for the purpose of ensuring safety in crossing the bar at the entrance to the harbour.
“All power driven vessels transiting the area must maintain their course.
“No kite surfers or board sailors operating in this area shall obstruct or impede the path of any transiting vessel.”
I presume this means that boats coming in and out of the harbour shouldn’t change course and that kite surfers and board sailors shouldn’t get in their way. But I had to read the sign several times before I could decode it.
It’s that unfamiliar word “transiting” that causes the reader to stumble. It’s a classic, cumbersome bureaucrat’s word.
No doubt some council functionary with a clipboard felt well pleased with himself at having conveyed an essentially simple message in the most complicated way possible, but how many foreign kite surfers and board sailors had narrow misses because they couldn’t understand the sign is anyone’s guess.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Reassuring voices in the night
The mainstream media cop a fair old pasting, but they come into their own at times of crisis. This has been borne out in over the past 24 hours, when we have seen the much-derided MSM at their best.
Television New Zealand, whose treatment of the news so often fills me with despair, went a long way toward redeeming itself with its coverage of the latest Christchurch calamity. Some of its pretty young women reporters – whom I’ve maligned in the past, suggesting they were recruited more for their looks than their ability – did a superb job. Could it be that, confronted with a truly dramatic breaking news event that forced them to fall back on their wits, they forgot (or ignored) the lessons from their expensive American coaches and simply got on with the job of telling the story? There was no time for artifice, no slick stage-managing of stories. This was the journalistic equivalent of bareback riding.
Some also dropped their professional mask of journalistic indifference and allowed their humanity to shine through. An example was the One News reporter whose shock and sorrow was unmistakeable as he described the devastation in Lyttelton.
Radio, too, rose to the occasion. Both Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB dropped their scheduled programmes (along with all commercials, in the case of Newstalk ZB) and maintained coverage of the quake and its aftermath throughout the night. I didn’t cross to Radio Live, but it may well have done the same.
Radio’s role extended well beyond interviewing authorities and crossing to reporters at the scene. It broadcast important 0800 numbers and, in the case of Newstalk ZB, passed on messages and helped put worried listeners in contact with missing friends and family members. All-night host Bruce Russell also read from texts and emails coming in from all over the world expressing sympathy and solidarity with the people of Christchurch.
Radio, for all the recent talk of it being another dinosaur medium, comes into its own at times like this. Some champions of social media argue that Facebook, You Tube and (heaven help us) Twitter will make radio redundant, but they overlook radio’s ability to reach out instantaneously to a mass audience. For all their wishful thinking, digital media have yet to replicate that combination of immediacy and reach.
This is what makes radio so invaluable still to police, civil defence and other emergency services seeking to convey important information. But more than that, radio can serve as a unifying force, morale-booster and agent of social cohesion. The frightened, anxious people of Christchurch, many of them doubtless unable to sleep as they waited for the next aftershock, could tune in last night and know they were not alone. There is reassurance in hearing human voices in the darkness and realising others are enduring the same ordeal – and that people all over the world, total strangers, are thinking of them and willing them to pull through. That must count for something at a time like this.
Television New Zealand, whose treatment of the news so often fills me with despair, went a long way toward redeeming itself with its coverage of the latest Christchurch calamity. Some of its pretty young women reporters – whom I’ve maligned in the past, suggesting they were recruited more for their looks than their ability – did a superb job. Could it be that, confronted with a truly dramatic breaking news event that forced them to fall back on their wits, they forgot (or ignored) the lessons from their expensive American coaches and simply got on with the job of telling the story? There was no time for artifice, no slick stage-managing of stories. This was the journalistic equivalent of bareback riding.
Some also dropped their professional mask of journalistic indifference and allowed their humanity to shine through. An example was the One News reporter whose shock and sorrow was unmistakeable as he described the devastation in Lyttelton.
Radio, too, rose to the occasion. Both Radio New Zealand and Newstalk ZB dropped their scheduled programmes (along with all commercials, in the case of Newstalk ZB) and maintained coverage of the quake and its aftermath throughout the night. I didn’t cross to Radio Live, but it may well have done the same.
Radio’s role extended well beyond interviewing authorities and crossing to reporters at the scene. It broadcast important 0800 numbers and, in the case of Newstalk ZB, passed on messages and helped put worried listeners in contact with missing friends and family members. All-night host Bruce Russell also read from texts and emails coming in from all over the world expressing sympathy and solidarity with the people of Christchurch.
Radio, for all the recent talk of it being another dinosaur medium, comes into its own at times like this. Some champions of social media argue that Facebook, You Tube and (heaven help us) Twitter will make radio redundant, but they overlook radio’s ability to reach out instantaneously to a mass audience. For all their wishful thinking, digital media have yet to replicate that combination of immediacy and reach.
This is what makes radio so invaluable still to police, civil defence and other emergency services seeking to convey important information. But more than that, radio can serve as a unifying force, morale-booster and agent of social cohesion. The frightened, anxious people of Christchurch, many of them doubtless unable to sleep as they waited for the next aftershock, could tune in last night and know they were not alone. There is reassurance in hearing human voices in the darkness and realising others are enduring the same ordeal – and that people all over the world, total strangers, are thinking of them and willing them to pull through. That must count for something at a time like this.
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