It was wall to wall coverage of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton last night.
It led both TV1 and TV3's six 'o'clock news bulletins and if that wasn't enough both Close Up and Campbell Live devoted a big chunk of their twenty something minutes going goo goo over the latest trivial news surrounding a spoiled and ridiculous family.
I switched on the radio about thirty minutes later only to discover that Radio Live's Karyn Hay was playing the same William and Kate interview that had just been broadcast on TV1 and TV3! Time for the Sex Pistols 'God Save The Queen', I thought to myself.
Watching this media circus unfold, I was reminded of observations that writer and columnist Christopher Hitchens made some years ago. He was talking about the treatment of the Windsors by the newspapers but his comments, I think, apply equally well to the media in general. He wrote:
The 'royal' theme operates with the intensity of Gresham's law ..., encouraging laziness and sentimentality and salacity by making it too easy to fill page upon page with brainless twaddle, and encouraging contempt for the readership that makes itself such an easy target.
It seems that our media is a long way from of growing out of is infantilism and sheer stupidly when it comes to Britain's wealthiest state beneficiaries.
The New Zealand media has already decided that 'we' can't get enough of Kate and William when, in reality, many of us couldn't give a toss. They are irrelevant to our lives.
Hilary, Mike, Wendy and Simon co might want to doth their caps to their imagined 'superiors' but please don't assume that the rest of us want to be dragged into this tawdry spectacle as well.
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