Mediums are frauds who prey on vulnerable people.
What on earth was TVNZ thinking when they introduced one to the parents of Aisling Symes, the toddler who went missing a few days ago?
If there is ever a time and a place for a chalatan, it’s certainly not with the parents whose child has disappeared.
I’ve never watched Sensing Murder but you don’t need special powers to sense stupidity.
It’s unprofessional, insensitive and stupid actions like this which explain why New Zealanders have such a low opinion of our media.
October 9, 2009 at 10:02 am
I hadn’t really understood until this week what a low opinion people have of the NZ media, TV in particular, and how badly that media treats the people it is dealing with. Journalists sweep into an area, Norsewood/Takapau for example, and sweep out again a few days later leaving those communities not just thankful a gunman has been captured but thankful the media has buggered off to annoy some other unsuspecting blighters. I say this not in respect to the personalities of some of the people I dealt with, but some of the stories that are coming back from those interviewed (hounded).
October 9, 2009 at 10:06 am
I’m still mulling over what I just said. It’s not that journalists are intentionally rude, just the nature of the quick turnaround of their work, but the determination of some journalists to get the names, to get the people, to get the exclusive, to get their first, then move on to the next thing. My community is reeling from what happened here earlier this week and it feels like noone gives a toss because the news immediacy has been and gone (except for the animal welfare issues that David Hunt, rightly so, is not going to let go. Mmm. I think I should have started my own blog about this instead of starting a comment on yours Ele!
October 9, 2009 at 11:12 am
Well, Kate and Ele, I thoroughly agree with both of you here. TV news is just the pits and I make a point of avoiding it. I do have considerable time for Radio New Zealand and I’m particularly grateful for their coverage of science.
October 9, 2009 at 11:57 am
I’m not trolling Ele but I wrote this over at Kiwiblog and am so disgusted thought I would repeat it here.
I haven’t commented yet on the thread so far – more on others comments cause I was trying to shape thoughts into some coherent and reasonable fashion.
I can’t.
This is one of the most repulsive acts I’ve heard of. To give hope to vulnerable people then to have it taken away by saying “well at least we tried everything” is so alien to me. What morality drives the people at TVNZ and how come, and I’m assuming they are New Zealanders, that it is so different from mine.
If the issue was cutting of a thief’s hand and I was in a Muslim country under some form of sharia law, while I don’t agree, that is their morality, their rules and I would respect that.
You may think that the example I’ve given is too extreme to be relevant but then the spectre of hope given then to taken away is, to me, as bad.
I want action on this i.e. an independent inquiry into TVNZ editorial and management in this case.
After the wee girl is found, of course. That should be everyone’s first priority. It doesn’t seem to be TVNZ’s.
October 9, 2009 at 12:01 pm
[...] blog has come as a result of reading another blog this morning: http://homepaddock.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/sensing-stupidity/ that mentions a media poll on another [...]
October 12, 2009 at 9:04 am
Thought this column by Linley Boniface in the Dominion Post might be of interest…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/blogs/opinion/columnists/2954046/Why-psychics-should-butt-out-of-Aisling-Symes-case
couldn’t agree more!