Heather du Plessis-Allan critiques television news for prioritising dramatic international events over local, impactful weather-related incidents, arguing that such coverage fails to reflect public interest in real consequences like inflation and cost of living.
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Verbatim segments from politicians speaking on podcasts and radio shows about this topic. Sourced via the voice-reference library — each speaker has been confirmed manually from their voice clip. Click play to stream the original audio from the publisher, pre-seeked to the moment the quote starts.
Right, here's a question I'd like to answer. Do we all have weird priorities about what we care about in this country or is it just the TV news in the evening that has these weird priorities? Last night I had to sit through 13 minutes of TV One telling me that nothing had happened with the cyclone before I got to the Iran war where something had actually happened. First, one news took us to their reporter in the Bay of Plenty. That reporter told us the storm had brought down a tree in the main street and a couple of old ladies made some jokes about wanting to go for a swim in the big swell, but really nothing had happened. Then we went to Gisborne to be told the waste water flooded and the guy in the caravan from the previous night's news was hardly affected by the storm because nothing much happened. And then we went to Henry and Hawke's Bay where nothing had happened yet. And then we went to the Coromandel where Simon Mercep told us there were really big storm surges in Whitianga. but nothing had happened. And then we went to the far north where the river was really high but nothing had happened. Then the weather girl wrapped it all up and then they told us breakfast would be all over it in the morning just in case something happened. And then finally, after 12 minutes and 45 minutes of this, 45 seconds of this, finally we went to the Iran war situation where something had happened. The peace talks had broken down and the delegation, the US delegation had now left. That is a war by the way. That will affect every single one of us. We will not escape it. The weather's going to affect some people. It will absolutely have affected a small group of people quite dramatically. But the Iran war will affect every single one of us in this country because diesel is tipped to hit $4 a litre, which means food prices will go up. Inflation is now rumoured to peak higher than after COVID at 7.5%. And ANZ is calling 3 OCR hikes this year because of it. Now, I wondered... If this was some sort of a reflection of what audiences were interested in, as in they can't get enough of the weather and couldn't care less of some war in Iran. No, I checked with the Herald this afternoon. Both of them are the top trending stories and there isn't much between them. I would like to suggest... that the TV news in the evening may want to rethink the strategy of 13 minutes of nothing leading the bulletin. So I realise pictures are important to TV and I realise they've paid to send Simon to the Coromandel so they do need three minutes from him to chuck on the telly. But pictures of nothing is still nothing and there's only so much time in the day that we can spend watching nothing before as audiences we just stop watching.
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critiques television's focus on dramatic over factual events
Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Does our news just have the wrong priorities?Social-media signal on the same topic, drawn from the social lens. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies, the same weighting used across the digest cards. View on /social →
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