Waikato Times letter of the week #86

From the edition of Tuesday 7 August. As always, spelling, punctuation, grammar and logic are exactly as printed in the Waikato Times.

There haven’t been many of these recently: I apologise for this break in service, but since the paper adopted a tabloid format there has been a reduction in letters printed. Post hoc ergo propter hoc, I assume: I shall ask the editor when I see him at the second meeting of the Hamilton Press Club on Friday.   

Response to letter writer

If I understand Hugh Webb (letter to the editor, July 21), there are four reasons to call for a more balanced reporting misdirected. First, Donald Trump, of course! Then the fact that all information can be found anyway. But where and why would anyone try to find willingly such atrocious accounts of failed humanity? Third, half of the population is too dumb to deserve some quality news. Really? And fourth, people are too selfish and self-centred to be given a chance to make “an intelligent assessment of political issues”. But isn’t the right to vote given to those who are 18, whatever their IQ or their ability to get interested in other people’s lives and problems? Even if there were a certain amount of truth in all these four points, isn’t it worth it to play the democratic challenge of informing people properly and then letting them decide what action to take? Indeed, bashing people with half-cooked analysis and uninteresting facts that waste the public time and the hard earn right to give and be given valuable elements of reflection won’t help shape our society for the better, but might do it for the worse.

Michael Bahjejian, Hamilton