This was quite novel for me as I've all but given up watching any broadcast TV completely these past few years. The Occassional five minutes here and there (usually fox news as I leave the house in the morning - its funny, ok), so on managing to first navigate the remotes and get the machines to work I was I must admit a tad shell shocked. All those ads and god most of them are badly made, well cheap is possibly more ot the point. Anyways I digress.
I watched the news, for the stranding of the Rena on Astrolabe Reef off the port of Tauranga concerns me greatly, not just because I care about our environment and country... but because for some seven years I lived in Mount Maunganui, back before the amalgamation into Tauranga city and the linking harbour bridge was errected - man it was a weird but wonderful small town (13,000) and community. Quite the sobering introduction to a wider NZ than my years in the South Island, thats for sure. So as an ex-mountie I have a very strong emotional attachment to the area.
It's where I finished high school, learned to and actively surfed for many years and in my lotto dreams return to surf again *insert beach bum with adequate means fantasy*. The Mt Maunganui coastline is pretty much one unbroken beach stretching all the way down to Makatu. Its golden sands, dunes and inconsistant breakers are a paradise for pleasure seekers of all ages and interests. Watching local residents verbalising what the beach meant to them on Cambell Live was heart wrenching - for those who live close the beach is an extension of the home and for those a drive away its their playground.
So I watched the news.... and learnt little I hadn't already found online... but I did get that connection with the people, thanks to Campbells caravan segment (an appreciated bonus). The ads plain bored and freaked me out -I can't and will never go back to a medium that intrudes so on my time in a manner like that. By the end of the one and a half hours I was numb - admitably I hummed to myself and pretended to watch paint dry during the half hour of sports (not including all the sport in the main news).
Having turned the box off and shuffled around the house I've come to one conclusion - by watching the tv news (especially if its your only or primary news source) will inform you only of the gist of whats going on in our country, let alone the wider world.
Since giving up the TV news and focusing on web based reporting, online newspapers (The Herald, Stuff et al - yes I appreciate how bad (tabloid) both are), blogs local and not (both left and right), places like info clearing house, tomdispatch and wikipedia and of course the ever wonderful online search engine (google for now) I know and can access more in depth knowledge and reporting plus get better, more informed, intelligent (and not) and down right amusing opinions than ever before in my life.
And its wonderful.
So in short, gutted bout the oil spill, TV bad, knowledge good
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