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Here are some stirring examples of the news media's ( mediae ? ) carrying out their duty to enlighten the public on matters of serious public concern.
Most of them are from the New Zealand Herald. It should not be inferred that other publications are less guilty; it is not the Herald's fault that it's the only newspaper I read regularly. Indeed, the Herald has been doing its best for many years to get rid of readers like me, but unfortunately there is no realistic alternative. The later items are fairly consistently formatted; the earlier items are scraped up from here and there, and I appear not to have taken into account when I wrote them that I'd want them nicely laid out according to a scheme I would devise several years later. Well, you don't have to read it. ( This sorry collection does not exhaust my views on the print media. For anyone strange enough to want it, there is more. ) |
| New Zealand Herald, 1997 February 5 : | "I don't accept his apology. It's come after the fact, and he can stick it." | ||
| He wants an apology before the fact ? | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 1997 February 8 : | "His methods were devious but straightforward." | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 1997 February 10 : | "Permission permitting, Dr Ala'i hopes to conduct the research this year." | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 1997 June 30 : | "New Zealand's last-surviving Victoria Cross holder, Jack Hinton, will be buried with military honours at a State funeral in Christchurch on Wednesday." | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 1997 November 8 : | "All creditors had, or were about to be, paid, she said." | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 1998 February 17 : | "He went on to report that in the 45
days of the Gulf War, 56,133.32 tonnes of ordinance was dropped on Iraq -
exceeding the 47,777.78 tonnes dropped in the 45 months of the Second World
War. ... much of the ordinance was coated with depleted uranium ...."
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| Those are remarkably precise numbers. And perhaps he really means
"ordinance" -
not even our worthy allies would be likely to present our ( naturally unworthy
) enemies with tens of thousands of tons of guns.
The first clue in the typically bad crossword ( species kiddies' toy, but at least making the attempt ) on the same day was "As decreed, I go in the artillery (9)". | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 1998 May 6 : | "MERGER CLOSE : A merger between the Waikato Polytechnic and the Auckland Institute of Technology is expected to be finalised this week." | ||
| - followed by circumstantial accounts of meetings of working parties, a joint statement from the heads of the two organisations, and a quotation about "processes to complete". | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 1998 May 7 : | "NO MERGER PLAN : The Auckland Institute of Technology has no plans for a merger with the Waikato Polytechnic or the Central Institute of Technology ....". | ||
| We understand that anyone can make a mistake, but you'd think someone would notice; in fact, there was no suggestion on May 7th that anyone had ever said anything different ! | |||
| Radio New Zealand news, 1999 June 29, 1 p.m. : | "... too much methane reflects an excessive concentration of all gases in the atmosphere ...". | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 2000 : | |||
| The New Zealand Herald lived up to its proud reputation, even surpassing
itself
by maintaining a steady stream of thick newspapers almost entirely full of
drivel. One item of the drivel which caught my eye ( well, I did look for
nuggets
of gold, without much success ) was an article bewailing the waste of good
trees
on unnecessary books, which I thought they could with advantage have taken to
heart in a more personal way. There was also an indication that time travel had been perfected; an article purportedly written in California and printed in the Herald which we received on January 1st expressed satisfaction that nothing untoward happened at the turn of the year; as we received the newspaper when it was about midday in California on December 31st that could be seen as surprising. It was reassuring to know that nothing was going to happen. I imagine that time travel works only with drivel. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2001 January 2 : | |||
| The front page of New
Zealand's
premier newspaper ( it says ) told us that the sea was cold, and someone had lost a boat.
There were also notices of four articles within: a painting turns out to be an
oldish masterish, a horse won a race, a supermodel is in New Zealand, and
there's a serial of a novel.
So it's peaceful here. But that was with Jerusalem even closer to explosion than usual, the northern bits of Europe and America covered in deep snow, Indonesia rapidly going out of control, and all the usual things rumbling along. - and page 2 is completely ( apart from the advertisements ) devoted to short notes on stories elsewhere in the issue, which is a great way to fill up yet another page with no material. | |||
| - and in part 2 of the paper, two curiously contradictory headlines : | "Black clouds over peace" and "From Bondi to Belgrade the year dawns in hope". | ||
| Perhaps you can't get from Bondi to Belgrade through Jerusalem. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2001 May 10 : | "Every year rubbish weighing the equivalent of 166,666 elephants, or about 500,000 tonnes, is collected in Auckland ...". | ||
| We infer that elephants are pretty carefully calibrated these days. | |||
| "All stock MUST go but only while stocks last". | |||
| Not really the Herald's fault, as it was in an advertisement. I'm not sure why I saw it, because after long practice I skip over most advertisements, but still .... | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 March 22 : | "The annual number of deaths of Maori men remains more than twice the level of other New Zealand men, despite years of Government action to improve Maori health." | ||
| The Maori population is something like 15% of the total. Perhaps every Maori man dies ten times, or so ? | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 May 11 : |
"Within his first few days in the House in 1984, ... Mallard was attacking Merv Wellington ... Mr Mallard charged that Mr Wellington had fashioned 'an unprecedented record of confrontation with the people and groups he supposedly represented'.
Unprecedented until now, perhaps." | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 May 13 : | "The former Portuguese colony ... is struggling to recover from the decimation of 80 per cent of its infrastructure ..." | ||
| From the context, 80% has disappeared, not 8%.
- and on the same day the Herald contrived to print two versions of the same story, from different sources, apparently without noticing - and precisely back to back on the same sheet of paper. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 June 22-23 : | "Tonight at 7.30pm Mullins opens the North Shore Arts Festival ..." | ||
| Notice the date; it was a weekend edition. | |||
| page G7 : | A full page article headed "Cool, clear water" : "... and in Putaruru it's among the purest in the world ... A new supply from the nearby Blue Spring ... now provides most of the town's water ..." | ||
| page A3 : | "Putaruru was still under a state of emergency last night after torrents of stormwater swept through the town on Thursday night ... the town's water reservoirs were seriously depleted." | ||
| - which is fair enough, but no one seems to have noticed, as neither article refers to the other. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 August 24-25 : | "The numbers add up to an ugly equation : more competition and fewer resources to fight it." | ||
| - two wrongs don't make a right; likewise, two inequalities don't make an equation. And while two equations can "add up" to an equation, any number of numbers adds up to a number. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 October 24 : | "We chose this caring profession because we enjoy helping sick people from cradle to grave." | ||
| That was in a letter. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 December 20 : | "... Iraq's weapons dossier contains omissions ..." | ||
| Reminiscent of "As I was going down the stair I met a man who wasn't there ...". | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2002 December 31 : | "Sergeant Vince Ranger of the Whangamata police there would be no excuse for people drinking in public." | ||
| - which finishes the year consistently. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 May 7 : | "But a severe shortage of dental therapists meant that ... children might not be able to be seen every 12 months". | ||
| I am alarmed at the implication that we are surrounded by invisible children. Presumably the dental therapists are falling down on their job of teaching the children to be visible, though I don't recall needing lessons myself; my ability to be visible has never been in question, so far as I know. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 May 15 : | Under the headline "Paper enjoys rising circulation" : "The Audit Bureau of Circulation survey .... puts the Herald's average sales at 210,910 up from 210,841 a year ago.". | ||
| That's about 0.03% - a good deal less than the growth in the population of Auckland in the same time. And they were so excited about it that they repeated the same news on May 17 - with the additional ( I think; I might just have stopped reading the previous report in disgust ) information that | |||
| ... recent figures showed a growth in average daily readership of 41,000. | |||
| Those 69 copies certainly do get around. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 May 15 : | "Thirty premises were visited by an underage volunteer in unsuccessful boids to but cigarettes.". | ||
| The mined goggles. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 May 20 : | "Deborah Coddington is Act's broadcasting spokesperson, not Rodney Hide as stated in an NZPA report yesterday." | ||
| In the "Corrections and Clarifications" column. I imagine that she's pleased; commenting on broadcasting would be much easier than being Rodney Hide. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 June 5 : | "... in Britain ... Kofi Annan was the most highly rated world leader, with the support of 72 per cent of the population, 1 per cent more than the Prime Minister." | ||
| - so 72% think Kofi Annan is the best world leader, and 71% think Tony Blair is the best world leader. At least 43% think they're both the best world leader ? ( Or perhaps it means that 71% of Tony Blair thinks that Kofi Annan is the best world leader ? ) | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 June 6 : | "... Mike Noel-Smith and Rob Abernathy were trying to row 7000km from ... Australia to ... Madagascar. ... Noel-Smith was knocked unconscious when he smashed his head against the side of their 7m boat during a fierce storm ... 'I certainly think I'd like to have another crack at it ...', Noel-Smith said." | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 July 22 : | "A plan intended to increase safety risks is having the opposite effect, groups say." | ||
- that gets odder the longer you look at it. In the same issue, there was an article about some idiots who had poured nitric acid into parking meters. The ever-helpful Herald, doubtless fearing that nitric acid was a notion as far beyond the grasp of their readers as it was beyond that of their reporter, offered these additional facts to help us understand the article :
The first had something to do with the article, in which the corrosive effect was not mentioned, though it does tell you that if you had touched the meters and then touched your eyes you "could have been blinded", and also that nitric acid was "used to make nitroglycerine, blasting caps, and ammunition". | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 July 23 : | "... Judy Kirk said it was a scheduled board meeting. '... There will be no decisions made. If the board decides there is anything to be done ...'" | ||
| - showing that the National Party board of directors can decide things without making decisions. | |||
| Radio New Zealand announcer, 2003 July 23, 5.58 p.m. : | "It must be six months since I played something from this disc, which must be some kind of record." | ||
| - to show that the old ones really do happen. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 August 18 : | "Offer ends 30 September 2003 or whilst stocks last." | ||
| What, again ? - that was in a Telecom advertisement. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 October 4 : | "My father, a farmer for more than 50 years, is one of the most compassionate farmers I have met, as are most farmers I know." | ||
| From a letter. Well, it's possible; suppose the set {farmers I know} is composed of three subsets, {not compassionate}, {very slightly compassionate}, and {slightly compassionate}, with all farmers indistinguishable in compassionateness from other farmers in the same subset. ( There must be at least three subsets to justify the superlative "most". ) If the first two subsets had one member each, and the third had three or more, including "my father", that would do it. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 November 3 : | "Temperatures have plummeted by 15 degrees in the last two days, from around 32 degrees to -1, ...." | ||
| - that's from a report about the North American sub-continent, so an immediate hypothesis is that they've switched from real degrees to the mediaeval sort half way through the sentence, which is a very odd thing to do, but I did mention the American connection. Unfortunately, 33 Fahrenheit degrees is 18.33... real ones. We may never know the true story. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 November 3 : | "A trough of low pressure clears leaving ... a cool southerly flow. This is gradually displaced ... by a high building across from the Tasman Sea." | ||
| - from the weather report. And ( fair's fair ), not being an enthusiast for weather forecasts, I wouldn't have seen that if the next day's Herald hadn't pointed it out. | |||
| North Shore Times Advertiser, 2003 November 4 : | "Bush destruction penalty 'too harsh'" | ||
| - not exactly hilarious in itself, perhaps, but I first interpreted the headline as referring to the US president, which was what "Bush" meant in headlines just then. ( In fact, it was about a man who was clapped in jail for destroying a significant area of native bush without proper authorisation. ) | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 November 12 : | "Levels of lead in onions and radishes often exceeded 10 micrograms per gram ... dried coriander contained more than 39mcg/g of lead. That could lead to people ingesting more than the daily safety limit ... of 15g a day for children ..." | ||
| Do you know any children who eat 1.5 tons of onions a day ? About half a ton of coriander might be easier, but it would still take a pretty determined child.
( Though perhaps there are some. Some time after November 12th, the Herald carried an article to the effect that some part of the New Zealand medical system dealt with five - I think - children less than twelve years old who weigh more than 150 kg each. I weigh a bit less than 90 kg. This is not intended as an amusing comment. ) | |||
| Radio New Zealand news, 2003 November 13, 9.00 a.m. : | "... after an accident which left nearly four people seriously injured ..." | ||
| - well, I think that's what she said. It's what I heard. If it were a press cutting, I could look again. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2003 December 6-7 : | "... the [New Zealand secret] service apparently did not have the technology to pixilate officers' faces ..." | ||
| - what technology does it take to make officers' faces "somewhat unbalanced mentally" ? ( The meaning comes from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, because the word isn't in my dictionary and the Merriam-Webster will look up words for anyone through the internet, thereby upholding the worthy USAian principle of freedom of information; I would have preferred to use the Oxford English Dictionary, because I'm biased, but the OED won't look up words for you unless you pay, thereby upholding the Napoleonic theory that the English are a nation of shopkeepers. )
( Explanation, as some readers might not be familiar with the alternative, and it lets me work off some more pig-headed opinions : ) From the context, they mean "pixellated", which is a disgusting apology for a word invented by illiterate computer graphics practitioners. A "pixel" is a useful contraction of "picture element", and means one of the dots of which pictures on computer screens are made. Unfortunately, "pixellated" does not mean "converted into pixels" but "with the colour of comparatively large ( usually ) square blocks of pixels distorted to a single colour to make the true image unrecognisable in that area". | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 February 16 : | "Since ... December 1999, the number of intoxicated young people being admitted to Auckland City Hospital's emergency department has risen every year.".
- and, in the same article :
Numbers of intoxicated 15 to 19-year-olds | ||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 also February 16 ( obviously a good day ) : | "Significant numbers of men ... are going to Australia for radiation therapy.
A fifth of the patients who have taken the Australian option since December are men. The rest are women ...". | ||
| - who are, presumably, not significant ? | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 March 26 : | "The bomb ... was found by a railwayman half-hidden in the ballast under track ... on the line from Paris to Basle". | ||
| Ah, the continental ways. British Rail was never as thorough as that. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 April 8 : | "Cameras would not be hidden or covert ..." ... "But as New Zealand switches to hidden cameras ...". | ||
| Yes, they're the same cameras. | |||
| Massey University Auckland Graduation programme, page 19, 2004 April 22-23 : | "AT 10.30AM RECIPIENTS OF THE AWARDS IN THE MASSEY UNIVERISTY ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTRE AND THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCES, WILL BE SEATED ...". | ||
| Nice to catch the opposition in flagrante delicto, particularly the English Language centre. And it's their comma, too. ... ( I don't spend hours poring over such documents, but this one was lying on our table after one of Jill's friends had graduated. ) | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 May 29 : | "... Catherine Masters, whose front page revelations about mist reatment ..."; "Political co rrespondent John Armstrong ..." ( and much, much more ) | ||
| Not screamingly funny in themselves - but the article in which they appeared was headlined "Herald picked as best daily". I remark that if the Herald really is the best daily, all the other papers must employ illiterate incompetents of a rare order of genius. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 June 7 : | "An astronomical event not witnessed by any living person will occur tomorrow, and a group of students and teachers from New Zealand will be among those lucky enough to see it." | ||
| Does that mean they have to become "not living" ? ( And they're pupils, not students, but that's a vitally important distinction that was lost when university students were in effect degraded to pupils. | |||
| New Zealand Herald, 2004 June 19-20 : |
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That was an advertisement, somewhat reformatted to preserve the effect of the original with less obtrusive typography. I can think of four interpretations of the second line :
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Alan Creak,
2004 June.