I have a new website, www.stephenstratford.co.nz, where
I set out my stall and tout my wares: book editing, manuscript assessment,
turning corporate-speak into readable English, that sort of thing.
The more
people link to it, the higher I go up the rankings on Google.
The Wintec Press Club lunch is held three times
each year on behalf of the journalism students, and staged by the Wintec School
of Media Arts. The star-studded guest list always features big names in
politics, media, entertainment, sport, business, law and the arts. And me – I
am now a lifetime member.
The students get to mingle with big-name media types and
newsmakers: most tables have one or two students who get to meet industry
veterans. It’s a brilliant idea and I have always enjoyed talking with the students and
doing my best to discourage them from entering the profession, suggesting they
do something useful or lucrative instead.
At our table were Hamilton mayor Julie
Hardaker and, on my immediate left, Tim Macindoe, MP for
Hamilton West and the Nats’ senior Whip. I wish I had known that when we were
chatting. I would have asked him, “What does a Whip do, exactly?” Instead we
talked about teenage suicide and Tauranga, where I spent my first 17 years quite
happily but he shuddered at the memory of spending just 18 months there. He was
very arts-friendly and, like me, a devotee of the free Wintec Press Club pens.
On my right was a mature student, a Mormon so I couldn’t ask her to pass the
wine. Instead we talked about her work with the homeless in Garden Place and
abused children. It’s not all gay hilarity at the Wintec Press Club.
Other guests included novelists Mandy Hager and Charlotte
Grimshaw, bloggers Michelle Dickinson of Nanogirl and Elizabeth
Marvelly of Villainesse, former politician Don Brash and, bafflingly,
Bevan Chuang.
The speakers at these events are usually eminent media
types types – last time it was TV3’s Paula
Penfold – though once it was Pam Corkery
and the time before that Rachel
Glucina. This time it was two major Maori journalists: Mihingarangi
Forbes (above left) and Annabelle Lee (above right). Forbes was a reporter/presenter at Maori Television’s
Native Affairs, Lee was producer. Both left this year. Carol Hirschfeld,
general manager production, and Julian
Wilcox, head of news and production, started this trend when they exited in
2014.
As our gracious host Steve Braunias said, there has been “an exodus of talent”
from Maori Television: if it was careless to lose Hirschfeld, and
then reckless to lose Wilcox, “it’s just kind of freaking nuts to
further lose people of such blazing quality as Mihi and Annabelle”.
Both speakers kicked off in Maori. Forbes, a Wintec
graduate, suggested that if the Maori King’s claim to Auckland succeeded he would
rename it Hamilton Heights. This went down well with the locals. Forbes was
very funny throughout, but also deadly serious about the problems facing Maori
journalists. Especially female Maori journalists.
Forbes and Lee’s main topic was the series of programmes
they made about the finances of the Kohanga Reo National Trust Board, starting
with A Question of
Trust (September 2013).
That turned out to be “a release valve for frustration”,
with many viewers asking for investigation into all sorts of Maori
organisations.
Both women send their children to kohanga reo, so know the organisation at ground level. Lee described it as “endless working bees and fundraisers” in contrast with what happens at the top.
After the next story, Feathering
the Nest (October 2013), they received threats, Native Affairs
was banned from Turangawaewae, people booked to come on the show “unbooked”
themselves. “How dare these girls challenge their rangatira?” was the reaction
from the usual male suspects: Derek Fox, Willie Jackson, John Tamihere, Dale
Husband. “We’re female, we’re younger than them.” Fancy that, old blokes being
sexist.
Both said how much they appreciated the support they’d
had from the mainstream media, singling out the Herald’s David Fisher and especially TV3’s Tova O’Brien who would
ask questions on their behalf when the kohanga reo people wouldn’t let them in
to a press conference.
Forbes said that Maori Television wouldn’t show the final
programme: “Yeah, and that’s basically why I quit.”
After the formal part, there were solid questions from
the floor that elicited excellent answers. Then came a long statement from singer
Moana Maniapoto about something or other. When I woke up, everyone was tucking
into dessert.
For the journalism students – and probably most of the
audience – this might have been the most useful Wintec Press Club address ever.
Forbes and Lee were frank about the problems facing all journalists today, and
especially Maori journalists who want to work in a Maori way, which involves
respecting one’s elders while also asking questions and holding the powerful to account. Speaking truth to power doesn’t go
down well when the powerful are old and male and the people speaking truth are
young and female. Possibly it’s the female part that is the problem.
There was also the small matter of there being in
Maoridom no such thing as six degrees of separation, so pressure comes from all
sides. And referring to Newstalk ZB’s Rachel Smalley’s complaint that there are
too few women
on-air, Forbes noted the greater “paucity of Maori in mainstream
media”. Well, yes. There is marginal and there is marginal.
At the end, Steve Braunias said, “The elephant in the
room is Maori TV. Man up and tell us – what the fuck happened?”
Forbes replied that after Julian Wilcox was replaced
by Paora Maxwell, “I didn’t want to be there any more. I hated it.”
Lee said simply, “All of the above.”
So here are Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan live in
2010, with “You Won’t Let Me Down Again”:
What happened at Maori TV is one of the most clear-cut cases
of establishment censorship imaginable. Journalists started asking
uncomfortable questions; the establishment got angry and imposed a new leader
on the organisation who shut everything down. There’s a hell of a book in
there. (The lack of public outrage is, presumably because mainstream New
Zealand doesn’t really care what happens in Maori institutions). It’s also a reminder to progressives – who advocate for more
public-funded media in response to the collapse of the commercial media model –
that state-funded media has its own problems.
Good. But he prefaced it with “QuoteUnquote has an overview
of the latest Wintec Press Club’s (notorious) luncheon featuring Mihingarangi Forbes and Annabelle Lee as
guest speakers”.
Our host at the lunch, Steve Braunias, took exception in
the comments (third one in):
Minor things. It’s not “(notorious)”, just an event. And
Stephen Stratford claims I said “Man up”! I didn’t.
Oh yes he did. I take notes at these events and recorded
this comment because he said it to two stroppy women, which we all thought was
quite funny – it got a big laugh. Evidence: a reporter’s notebook:
When an
opposition party chooses a new leader in the wake of defeat, the event has the
potential to be a moment of rebirth: sorrows can be put aside, a line drawn
under past failures, the party may dare to dream again.
It was like that for some in the crowd at the Queen
Elizabeth II conference centre when it was declared that Jeremy Corbyn had
become Labour’s crimson king by conqueroring [sic – this is the Guardian] the party with a haul of votes
that obliterated his rivals.
We must all wish the British Labour Party well.
Meanwhile, here are King Crimson live in San Francisco in December 1969 with “Epitaph”
from their debut album, released in October that year, In the Court of the Crimson King. Sample lyrics:
Confusion will be my epitaph….
The fate of all mankind, I see in the hands of fools
This is from the edition of
Tuesday 8 September. As always, spelling, punctuation, grammar and logic are
exactly as printed in the Waikato Times.
Vaccine
thoughts
In a pro-vaccination story in the Waikato Times on
Friday, September 4, Dr Noni McDonald says that natural isn’t best, natural
kills. Well, isn’t that the way it was meant to be? Survival of the fittest?
Today’s problems stem from the fact that mankind has
interfered with nature far too much for our own good. Overpopulation, food
shortages, pollution, to name just a few, are all the result of man’s meddling
in the natural course of events. Diseases are the natural way of maintaining
the proper balance of life on this planet. All species of life have survived
for millions of years without the need for vaccines to keep diseases
controlled.
We are doomed if we continue to strive to keep everyone
alive for far longer than would naturally be the case. Perhaps we are doomed,
anyway, but why hurry things?
If an animal other than a human is born with a defect
that is not naturally survivable, it is allowed to die or is put out of its
misery. Why do we keep our own alive to perhaps live a life full of suffering
and ill health?
Wouldn’t it be kinder to let nature take its course
without intervening?
This is for Yorkshirepersons Peter Bland, Chris Else, Josh Easby and my
mother, from The Week’s “Pick of the week’s
correspondence” in its 29 August issue:
A grave
error
To The
Times
My favourite gravestone typo series is that of the Yorkshireman
who chose for his aunt’s headstone the epitaph: “She was thine.” Finding that
it had been carved “She was thin”, he complained to the stonemason: “You’ve
missed out the ‘e’.” On his return, he found that the alteration had been duly
made: “E, she was thin.”
Katy Balls reports
in the Spectator that Sheriff Stephen
Jessup of McInTosh County in Georgia has taken an innovative approach to
dealing with drug crime:
“He took out an advert in a local paper calling on drug
dealers to anonymously dob each other in to get rid of their competition:
‘Attention drug dealers. Is your drug-dealing competition costing you money? We
offer a FREE service to help you eliminate your drug competition!’”
