Lockdown Diary
By John Terris
Wednesday, 22 July 2020
Lockdown Diary
Now that we have emerged from Level 3 and are well on the way to being back to where we were, (though sadly, we will never be the same), I have been keeping a media Diary and here are a few notes taken along the way.
23 March 2020: Last Saturday morning I sat in my car and
listened to the highly authoritative tones of the Prime Minister of this country, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern.
It was 12 noon and she was making a statement to the nation.
She declared that we would be in Lockdown as from Wednesday.
I began to take this Covid thing seriously. A month ago Mr Trump told a Phoenix television station, "I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along." Four days later, he pronounced the situation "very much under control". The recent signals from the White House are that the Don is having a rethink: with the US having the doubtful distinction of having had more deaths from Covid than any other country on the planet.
APRIL FOOLS DAY 2020: John Tamihere was on the Teev tonight
shouting that Maori people are not being treated as equally as Pakeha in the testing queues.
Expect improvements. John knows the System rewards those who shout the loudest.
5 April 2020: It's difficult to grasp that Radio Sport,
the successor of Sports Roundup on the national programme, "The Sound of Summer" in the 70s and 80s, is now no more.
I feel certain if I am certain of anything that it will be back.
7 April 2020: There's no relief on the news from endless death
and dying at present.
So as an antidote to all that grief and pain, can I recommend Wolf Hall (TVNZ On Demand) which will, I'm sure,
take you from the unpleasant present, to another place.
9 April 2020: The share-market, world wide, is riding high.
I am waiting for someone to tell us why? Do they know something we don't.
Or does economic adversity mean that people with money prosper?
Paul Henry is back in town I gather. He'll know. (Joke)
10 April 2020: For me the current Must See is TVNZ’S
"Have You Been Paying Attention?", a quiz with NZ comedians being smart and funny and led by the
sharp-as-a-whip Hayley Sproull.
21 April 2020: Apparently TV viewing has rocketed under
our lockdown, but if you think I'm locked onto TV1, you are wrong.
I've been beavering away with my fundraising efforts and working on my tax return!
28 April 2020: Katie and I watched a great movie on Saturday,
"The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Society", which was completely ruined by an hour of commercials
interspersed throughout, so that any storyline there might have been was completely obliterated.
29 April 2020: The people in the street, their resolve to
keep going despite all the knocks, their desperation mixed with determination that we would weather this crisis
and be better for it, have given me a new appreciation of my fellow Kiwis.
12 May 2020: The Media have roamed free over the NZ media
landscape for the last 6 weeks, like an out-of-control herd of extras from the Jurassic Park zoo, attempting to
instill fear and panic into the population at large.
Kiwis have shown they are better than that.
22 May 2020: The Coca Cola culture has taken over the
language of Shakespeare on TV, as a result of the surfeit of American TV shows.
So that people now prefer "HurriCANES" to "Hurricanes", "LuminAIRIES" to "Luminaries" and "CEREEMOANEE" to "ceremony".
1 June 2020: TV'S 60TH Birthday
What did TVNZ show us this night? A couple of minutes on their news.
There was a fitting piece covering the history of TV in NZ, running for about 20 minutes but guess what –
IT WAS ON RADIO.
Someone is asleep on the job.
John Terris
President
MEDIA MATTERS IN NZ
jterris@xtra.co.nz
