News Archive 2010
Headlines
- 'BSA disappoints - again', by Media Matters member John Terris - 1 August 2010
- Mum Faces More Fights over TV Ads - 25 July 2010
- [U.K.] MP urges fines for credit card firms over child porn - 21 July 2010
- Get the net out of kids' rooms - 19 July 2010
- Do video games cause attention problems in kids? - 5 July 2010
- Viewers don't mind TV violence says BBC (after asking just 300 of them!) - 23 June 2010
- Pornography is not a private issue - 21 June 2010
- Legalising R18+ Games will not protect children
- Media complaints - Sunday Star Times letter by John Terris - 30 May 2010
- Standards – A matter of Conventions, by Media Matters member Marris Weight - May 2010
- Media Matters' newsletter - April 2010
- Top of the Flops, by Media Matters member John Terris - 26 March 2010
- Man abused schoolgirls he met online - Dominion Post - 15 March 2010
- Violent video games make kids more aggressive, care less - Herald Sun, Australia - 3 March 2010
- Abusive mums may be tracked through life - NZ Herald - 3 March 2010
- A Tonic Mixture, by Media Matters member Marris Weight - 24 February 2010
- They said it! - 24 February 2010
- New [Broadcasting Standards Association] report says television classifications confusing - RadioNZ Morning Report - 19 February 2010
- Media Matters' newsletter - February 2010
'BSA disappoints - again', by Media Matters member John Terris - August 2010
John Terris
In yet another flabby and weak-kneed decision, the Broadcasting Standards Authority decided not to call foul on TVNZ presenter Paul Henry for his discriminatory remarks against singing sensation Susan Boyle. (He called her retarded and chuckled repeatedly at the idea, as if he had said something uproariously funny.)
Apart from calling into question his own mental state, Henry showed yet again that he has neither the maturity nor judgement to be a front-person on a national news and opinion programme. He should have been sacked, or at very least suspended without pay, and the broadcaster clearly wasn’t going to let that happen without the BSA calling for strong action to be taken. That’s because people will, they hope, tune in just to see what this outrageous individual will try to get away with next, and so lift TVNZ’s advertising revenues.
For its part, the BSA failed yet again to exact strong penalties for offences involving discriminatory remarks against people who can’t defend themselves. When questioned about this by Radio NZ’s Colin Peacock, BSA Chief Executive demanded to know rather petulantly "What do people want?" - as if to expect the Broadcasting Standards Authority to rigorously enforce standards, is somehow unreasonable.
What people want is very simple. They want the BSA to stop cosying up to the Broadcasting Industry, and instead to start enforcing penalties and sanctions which include significant cash fines for significant breaches like discrimination against the weaker members of society.
Mum Faces More Fights over TV Ads - 25 July 2010
ACC advert 2007
Some ads bore us, some actually entertain us while others tend to warn us about various dangers using very horrifying images.
But when is it an appropriate time to show the "You’ve been warned" advertisements?
A Waikato mother realised that a lot of these ads are shown when young children are still watching television, so she decided do something about it.
[U.K.] MP urges fines for credit card firms over child porn - 21 July 2010
UK MP Geraint Davies
Credit cards, we all want one to buy anything and everything we desire.
Unfortunately, some people use them for very sinister acts involving children.
However, an MP in the U.K. is seeking to make credit card companies more responsible for the use of their cards in purchasing child pornography. [ Read full article ... ]
Get the net out of kids' rooms - 19 July 2010
It used to be the TV that kids wanted in their room, but now it’s a computer with the internet.
With the ever increasing flow of "dangerous" content appearing on the internet, is it safer to keep the computer in the viewing eye of the parents or are kids safe enough to surf privately?
Do video games cause attention problems in kids? - 5 July 2010
Long hours in front of the television, whether channel surfing or gaming, could make it difficult for kids to concentrate in school, psychologists said Monday.
While researchers are still divided on the issue, the findings jibe with most earlier work on the effects of television watching in kids, they said.
"What we don't know at this point is why TV and video games really would cause attention problems," said Douglas A. Gentile, who worked on the study.
Gentile, who runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University in Ames, added that too much screen time had also been linked to increased aggression and, perhaps less surprisingly, expanding waistlines.
He said the new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, was the first to follow over time how video games may impact kids' concentration skills.
[ Read full article on Reuters' site ... ]
Viewers don't mind TV violence says BBC (after asking just 300 of them!) - 23 June 2010
Ahh the BBC, apparently the "fine dining" of television.
They have millions of viewers in the U.K. so they decided to ask the viewers if the programming the BBC broadcasts is acceptable to watch in terms of violence, sex and foul language.
300 people were asked, including kids and the BBC decided that the answers from the 300 people were more than enough to represent their entire viewing population!
Pornography is not a private issue - 21 June 2010
We tend to think that what we do in our own home should be of no concern to no one.
However what we do in the privacy of our own home can have a very strong impact on our public behavior.
Legalising R18+ Games will not protect children
A relentless push by gamers and the industry has resulted in the [Australian] Federal Government's call for
responses to the question:
"Should the Australian National Classification Scheme include an R18+ classification
category for computer games?"
[ Read full discussion on the ACCM site ... ]
[ Read the Editorial in their 'small screen' magazine [PDF], March 2010 ... ]
[ Read the ACCM submission to Canberra [PDF], February 2010 ... ]
Media complaints - Sunday Star Times letter - 30 May 2010
THE ARTICLE ridiculing those who make complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority (News, May 23) shows just how contemptuous of
any sort of standards those responsible for the increasing volume of gratuitous violence, sex and bad language
on television really are of the audience ...
[
Read full letter by John Terris ... ]
News, May 23 - Related article:
Mice cruelty aside, chill wind blows back on media accusers
Sunday Star Times, 23 May 2010, by Esther Harward
RECENT COMPLAINTS to media watchdogs – including that a runway fashion outfit was described with the wrong animal print, a flounder dish was criticised in a restaurant review, and a newspaper dropped an apostrophe in Hawke’s Bay – have got commentators ... [ Read full article ... ]
'Standards – A matter of Conventions', by Media Matters member Marris Weight
Marris Weight
The New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority has used the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as the basis for their voluntary Code for Advertising to Children, to which all principle New Zealand Advertisers are signatories.
Article 17 of the Convention asks "the media of signatory countries to acknowledge each
child's individuality, uniqueness, strength and capability, while affording children 'extra protection' from
violence, unsafe practices, indecency, offensive language or bad taste."
[
Read full article ... ]
Media Matters' newsletter - April 2010
Read our April 2010 newsletter online
or read / print from a PDF file (PDF file - 127Kb).
'Top of the Flops', by Media Matters member John Terris
And now ladies and gentlemen – I give you
the Top of the Flops for the week,
awarded to the Worst Television Programme on our screens in the last seven days –
the GOLDEN RASPBERRY AWARD – THHHHHHHHHH
– goes to ...
[
Read full article ... ]
Man abused schoolgirls he met online - 15 March 2010
An online predator used social networking site Bebo to prey on schoolgirls, sexually abusing two he befriended through the internet.
Police said the pool of potential victims was growing by the day as more children turned to social networking sites and showed the ease with which predators could strike.
[ More ... Dominion Post: Man abused schoolgirls he met online - 15 March 2010 ]
Violent video games make kids more aggressive, care less - 3 March 2010
Researchers say they have proved this conclusively after analysing analysed [sic] 130 reports involving more than 130,000 gamers
Abusive mums may be tracked through life - 3 March 2010
Nia Glassie. Photo / Supplied
A panel of experts has recommended an alert system for all abusive mothers so officials know when they have more children.
[ More ... NZ Herald: Abusive mums may be tracked through life - 3 March 2010 ]
'A Tonic Mixture', by Media Matters member Marris Weight
Marris Weight
The deregulation of the media industry has seen successive governments advocating community responsibility and the strengthening of families as a means of maintaining community standards.
The previous coalition labour government created the families commission. The function of the families commission is to promote the role of the family in the setting of acceptable behavioural standards.
The current national government is taking a strong stance towards crime and responsibilities parents have towards their children.
If the government expects parents to play a greater role ...
[
Read full article ... ]
They said it!
Here is a short selection of some of the wonderful uses to which our newsmakers and advertisers put the English language:
- TSB bank advertisement - 13 Feb 2010
- Bernadine Oliver Kerby, One News - 21 Jan 2010
- Green Party MP Keith Locke, One News, 6pm - 22 Feb 2010
"At TSB bank we treat our customers like individjools."
"Is eyed gedding through tuh eerias of must need doyouthink?"
"I’m sorry, would you repeat the question?" (A baffled Gus Valcarcel, multi-lingual Associated Press Correspondent, live from quake ridden Haiti.)
"They've got these cameras on these Tasers, they should let us see the footage," says Locke.
Green Party MP Keith Locke, questioning "what the police have got to hide".
Locke thus demonstrates awesome mastery of what’s happening around him in the way of violence against the Police, after an earlier item in the same bulletin reveals:
"Assaulting a police officer could soon bring a harsher penalty with the minister looking to make changes after a series of brutal attacks on police.
One of those was in Oamaru where a policeman was attacked, while an officer's lip was bitten off in an incident near Whangarei and an off duty officer was attacked south of Auckland".
New report says televsion classifications confusing
- RadioNZ Morning Report - 19 February 2010
A report from the Broadcasting Standards Authority says many television viewers are confused by the way content
is classified.
Listen to Audio (duration: 3′30″)
Media Matters' latest newsletter - February 2010
Read our latest newsletter online [PDF file: 376Kb].
Topics:
- Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA)
- Join Donald MacDonald and use the BSA complaints system
- Stop brutalising our kids!
- Become a member; encourage others to become members
