News Archive 2009

Headlines

• TV tokens target the telly tubbies 8 November 2009
• Violent TV Undermining Family Violence Message - Family First NZ Media Release: 31 October 2009
  • Family Watershed time - So what can you do?
• President's Report to 2009 AGM 15 August 2009
• [Australian] Electoral commission approves new 'Sex Party' 10 August 2009
• Summary of Meeting with Minister of Broadcasting 30 July 2009
• Teen's death highlights cyber bullying trend  23 July 2009
• The Trial of the Week has been a Trial of the Media
  (And Boy Have They Earned A Stiff Sentence!) 22 July 2009
• A son, a mum and the saucy Trade Me images  5 July 2009
• BBC bows to viewers and curbs swearing after 9pm watershed  
  24 June 2009
• Chainsaw advert cuts a little too deep for some  31 March 2009
• Khler attacks virtual violence at massacre memorial service   21 March 2009
• Winnenden massacre parents [open letter] call for changes   21 March 2009
• Radical plan to tackle school bullies  15 March 2009
• Police target web predators  22 February 2009

TV tokens target the telly tubbies

Automated screen breaks could help reduce the amount of time children spend watching television and help fight against obesity, Auckland health researchers say.

In the first home-based study of its type, Auckland University's School of Population Health researchers looked at the feasibility and effectiveness of using token-fed electronic devices that interrupt the TV signal after set periods.

[ More ... Sunday Star Times, 8 Nov 2009: TV tokens target the telly tubbies ]

 

Violent TV Undermining Family Violence Message -
Family First NZ - Media Release, 31 October 2009

[Excerpt]

Family First NZ says that a report by the Parents Television Council [USA] which documents an alarming rise in violence against women and girls on prime-time television should sound warning bells in NZ.

According to the report Women in Peril: A Look at TV's Disturbing New Storyline Trend which studied trends from 2004 to 2009, it found a dramatic increase in storylines depicting violence against women and girls, and the violence being more graphic than ever before.

…

A Family First investigation of 15 programmes on four free-to-air channels between 6pm and 8.30pm over a period covering November 4–13 in 2008 found a saturation of foul language, sexual innuendo, and promotion of Adult Only programmes, and called in to question the so-called family watershed time.

[Excerpt]

[ More ... Family First NZ Media Release, 31 Oct 2009: Violent TV Undermining Family Violence Message ]
[ More ... PTC [USA] Press release, 28 Oct 2009: Women in Peril: PTC Report Finds Increase in Violence Against Females on Television ]
[ More ... report & video: Parents Television Council [USA], Oct 2009 - Women in Peril: A Look at TV’s Disturbing New Storyline Trend ]

Editor: The problem identified by Family First and the Parents Television Council is one shared internationally, as this extract from the Sydney Daily Telegraph of 18 September 2009 makes clear.

[Excerpt]

Wrath of God is TV's next big hit

The hit series Underbelly is among shows under fire from a major Christian group demanding tougher rules on sex and violence on TV.

With standards governing on-screen content being reviewed for the first time in six years, the Australian Christian Lobby launched the "Tame the Tube" campaign to combat what it says are industry attempts to weaken TV standards.

[Excerpt]

[ More ... The Daily Telegraph - Wrath of God is TV's next big hit, 18 Sept 2009 ]

Family Watershed time - So what can you do?

Write to your local paper and your MP and say that in the light of credible local research, the Watershed on NZ television must be enforced by the Broadcasting Standards Authority, for the sake of our children, and the more vulnerable in our society.

See our AO Campaign page.

 

President's Report to 2009 AGM

On Saturday, 15 August 2009, our 2009 AGM was held in Lower Hutt.

Besides the usual business of an AGM, the main business was to vote a change to our rules and constitution to accord with the Charities Commission rules.  The meeting was followed by a social get-together.

Of special note was that we had three generations of the same family attending.  Executive member Penny Jones was there, along with her daughter Alicia, and mother Peggy Burton.

Huge thanks are due to all those people who together, help the oldest media advocacy group in NZ to keep going.

In particular, our special thanks to the following for their unique contributions:

• Adrian Cooper is a our long-suffering and hard-working secretary.
• Penny Jones is our Auckland executive member and so has a huge area of responsibility.
• Ralph Ross is based in Christchurch and has a wide range of community contacts which are invaluable to us.
• Mel Wood keeps our membership records up-to-date, and lives in Featherston (this is the e-age folks) and has never been known to make a single mistake.
• and Llewe Jones does our design work and has produced our very "grabby" logo.
• Tania Goodwin is our multi-talented Administrator.

Many thanks also to our Honorary Auditor, John Austad and Honorary Solicitor, Peter Morahan who both do a sterling job.

Read the President's Report to AGM, 15 August 2009.

 

[Australian] Electoral commission approves new 'Sex Party'

The [Australian] electoral commission has officially approved the registration of the Australian Sex Party, ruling the new political party's name is not obscene.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) registered the new party as a legitimate political group over the weekend, with a membership of about 3,000.

[ More ... ABC News (online): Electoral commission approves new 'Sex Party', 10 August 2009 ] [ More ... Sydney Morning Herald (online): Australian Sex Party gets all-clear, 8 August 2009 ] [ More ... Australian Electoral Commission (online): Party Registration decision: Australian Sex Party, 5 August 2009 ]

 

Issues raised at Meeting with Minister of Broadcasting - 30 July 2009

On Thursday, 30 July 2009,
Bob McCoskrie (Family First NZ) and John Terris (Media Matters) met in the Office of the Minister of Broadcasting, Jonathan Coleman.

We thanked Dr Coleman for the opportunity to talk through some our concerns with him.  These included:

• The Broadcasting Standards Authority
• The Watershed
• Violence
• Consistency across regulatory bodies
• Complaints Procedure

We summarized the position as follows:

• That members of Family First and Media Matters were ordinary people who were bemused by official indifference to their wish to see better enforcement of existing rules.
• We did not advocate heavy handed censorship but simply better protection of children and young people from the harmful effects of gratuitous sex, violence and bad language.
• We said that we believed people with a libertarian world view on these matters appear to have taken over our broadcasting regulatory system and need to be replaced by those with a sense of what is appropriate for the preservation of foundation values and attitudes.

The meeting concluded with an indication from the officials present that we will be invited to participate in future in government Working Groups on these matters, and your representative stated that they looked forward to hearing further about opportunities to do so.

[ Read the whole Summary of the Meeting by John Terris, 30 July 2009 ]

 

Teen's death highlights cyber bullying trend

A Melbourne mother has blamed her 14-year-old daughter's suicide on the internet and the tragic case has highlighted the problem of cyber bullying among young people.

In Australia, one of the first comprehensive studies of cyber bullying shows about 10 per cent of teenagers and children have experienced some form of sustained bullying using technology.

It is a behaviour that can have tragic consequences.

[ More ... ABC News (online): Teen's death highlights cyber bullying trend, 23 July 2009 ]

 

The Trial of the Week has been a Trial of the Media
(And Boy Have They Earned A Stiff Sentence!)

Editor's Note:

The trial of Clayton Weathertson for the murder of Sophie Elliott has thrown into relief, the way that our carnivorous media will linger lovingly over every last gory detail of other people's misery and pain.

We have become accustomed (or as experts call it "desensitised") to the way that people who have undergone tragedy, are thrust in front of our television cameras and cajoled or wheedled into displaying their every last quiver of pain and despair.

We have become a nation of ghouls, feeding on the blood and agony of others.  It is the same disgraceful wallowing in other people's tragedy which causes traffic jams at accident sites, caused by people who deliberately slow down to see if they can sight blood and broken limbs.  The same people drool over TV programmes which feature corpses in the process of dissection.

The truly disgusting reportage of the trial of Clayton Weatherston, revealing as it did every last detail of the way that he killed his girlfried Sophie by stabbing her 213 times with a pair of scissors, displays not only Weatherston at his worst, but also the insatiable appetite of the media for blood and guts.

"If it Bleeds, It Leads."  That's the maxim of our media today.  We have been fixated for weeks with the trial of David Bain for multiple killings.  The tragedy of a disfuntional family split apart by their own discord, was elbowed aside by the media, as they struggled to be the first to probe and prod until every last speck of gore and brain matter was salivated over and relished.

Yuk - our media, television in particular, are really sick.

 

A son, a mum and the saucy Trade Me images

Most people would shudder at the thought of seeing photos of their mother in lacy underwear and suspenders.

Not Auckland student Michael - who twice tried to auction such saucy shots on Trade Me.

Editor's Note:

In case you are taken in by the assertion that getting rid of porn from websites is technically too difficult, note that local website Trade Me had no difficulty this week in taking off its site, material it has deemed inappropriate.

Why should web site owners be the judge and jury in these things.

What makes business owners somehow more capable of judging what the community deems are appropriate standards.

Sensible laws, like those pending in Australia, will make the community at large the arbiter of taste and decency, and will ban all porn.

Why not here?

[ More ... NZ Herald (online): A son, a mum and the saucy Trade Me images, 5 July 2009 ]

 

BBC bows to viewers and curbs swearing after 9pm watershed

The BBC is to tone down the amount of sex and swearing screened following the 9pm watershed, because viewers were dismayed by the moral decline in programme standards.

[ More ... 'Telegraph', UK (online): BBC bows to viewers and curbs swearing
after 9pm watershed, 24 June 2009 ]

 

Chainsaw advert cuts a little too deep for some

An advertisement for a brand of chainsaws that makes light of a deathbed scene has drawn criticism for being insensitive and offensive.

[Excerpt]

It is humour of the blackest kind, but a conservative media standards watchdog says the ad, for chainsaw manufacturer Stihl, has crossed a line.

"I was really horrified," says Adrian Cooper of Media Matters in NZ.  "I thought, this is not good enough.  It's simply not good enough, and it's not the New Zealand I know."

The ad prompted a flurry of complaints to the Broadcasting and Advertising Standards authorities.

"I think that any mature, responsible, thinking adults looking at that would find it offensive," says Mr Cooper.

[Excerpt]

[ More ... 3News: Chainsaw advert cuts a little too deep for some, 31 March 2009 ]

[ Watch the video ... 3News: News clip includes Chainsaw advert, 31 March 2009 ]

 

Kohler attacks virtual violence at massacre memorial service

Speaking at the memorial church service in Winnenden [to mourn the 15 people shot dead by 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer on 11 March], German President Horst Kohler spoke out against ultra-violent computer games and films, calling for the political world and society in general to reject them.

[ More ... The Local: Tragedy in Winnenden, 21 March 2009 ]

 

Winnenden massacre parents [open letter] call for changes

As Winnenden gathered on Saturday [21 March] to mourn the 15 people shot dead by Tim Kretschmer earlier this month, the families of five schoolgirl victims called for laws to keep children away from guns, violent video games to be banned and reporting of such massacres to be restricted.

The letter published in the local paper Winnender Zeitung, was addressed to Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Horst Kohler and the Baden-Wurttemberg state premier Gunther Oettinger.

[ More ... The Local: Winnenden massacre parents' open letter, 21 March 2009 ] [ More ... The Local: Associated articles ]

 

Radical plan to tackle school bullies

SCHOOLS COULD combat bullying by shortening lunch breaks and releasing classes at different times, says a top-level inquiry that will go public tomorrow.

The inquiry also warns that victims could sue teachers and schools that are slack in dealing with bullying.

[ More ... Sunday Star Times: Radical plan to tackle school bullies, 15 March 2009 ]

 

Police target web predators

Good news for worried parents

A NEW police unit is being launched to protect kids from online sexual predators and the dangers of social networking sites.

[ More ... Sunday Star Times: Police target web predators, 22 February 2009 ]

 

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