And the finalists for the inability to distinguish between news and nonsense category of the Mediocres are: the newspapers, radio stations and televisions channels which covered the non-news that an MP was rude.
Why am I not including bloggers in that roll of dishonour? Because blogs are the personal views of the people who write them, most don’t try to be balanced, some break news, some are written by journalists but they are not main stream media.
The MSM is supposed to be objective and to differentiate between what’s in the public interest and what the public might be interested in.
If journalists have to cover stories like this they could at least do it properly and give their readers/listeners/viewers some idea of what the children were doing and how loudly they were doing it when Charles Chauvel was moved to wish they’d shut up.
It would have been better still if that idea had been an objective one rather than a did-didn’t exchange by Chauvel and the children’s mother.
From any of the reports I’ve seen it’s impossible to know how disruptive the chidlren were and if Chauvel’s comment was just a quiet aside to his partner or whether he deliberately said it loudly enough for the parents to hear in the hope they’d quieten the kids.
But whatever the truth is it’s not something which needs or should be covered by the MSM.
They should concentrate on news and leave the nonsense to bloggers who are having a field day:
Kiwiblog posts on winning over the voters one at a time
Keeping Stock thinks Chauvel should stop digging
Roarprawn says stfu noisy kids are not okay
Cactus Kate writes Charles Chauvel chucks a Galdys
Dim Posts posts on Nemesis :
I hope the Speaker takes another look at charging rent for the press gallery offices, just to see Lockwood try and keep a straight face when the political media insists it ‘fulfils a vital role in our democracy’.
Oswald Bastable posts on the subject of MPs and kids on aircraft
Whaleoil says Charlie Shovel hates kids pisses off blogger
At Pundit Andrew Geddis writes I love the news it’s my favourite show
PM of NZ posts Move along, nothing to see here
Fairfacts Media reckons he’s only a bit of a Charlie
Crusader Rabbit says so control them
Alf Grumble reckons that’s what comes with flying your family to see pixies you end up in flak
And Poneke justifiably despairs with Stop the presses Finance Ministers wife buying junk food for her children in Thorndon New World
UPDATE:
Andrei posts on yesterday’s storm in a tea cup at NZ Conservative.
Kiwiblog has more thoughts on the Chauvel story
Whaleoil writes keep digging Charlie
and Brian Edwards scores parents nil, media nil MP 8 out of 10
Homepaddock 
If I didn’t know that our media are all noble types I would have said there was an element of payback going on here.
JC
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What a beat up – it does point to one thing though – we don’t value kids enough “they should be seen and not heard” per the old Victorian maxim.
Kids are what they are and kids in confined spaces for long periods get restless. 45 minutes is a long tome when you are little.
I don’t mind kids being restless but then I like kids.
Tantrums are a bit more difficult but normal exuberance is to be cherished and only moderately contained – if the needs must.
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Hard to argue with your eminent sensibleness Ele. However, can you imagine the story having gained so much traction had H1 and/or H2 still been on the scene? It would have been closed down quick-smart. Instead, the more Chauvel justifies his response, the sillier he looks.
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Just a matter of intolerance to children
Imagine the uproar if the people asked to “Shutup” or “Shouldn’t be here” were black
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Checked out your link to Whaleoil. What a scurrilous blog.
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