No news is bad news for the people who make money from it. So, in that uneventful period from Christmas to the middle of January, they just make it all up. Not that they don’t do this normally, but the link between media and objective reality becomes even more tenuous at this time of year. Skeleton staff left to mind the shop, while their editors retire to their Waiheke baches (or attend prime ministerial weddings) become resentful and lazy, bonking in broom closets, making giant phalluses out of Family First press releases and breaking into the wine writer’s store of vintage reds. Occasionally they do some writing…
Pointless Highlights from the past Year
I understand why it’s a common approach. A troll through the archives followed by a bit of copying and pasting. Quick and easy. But we all have memories right? And some years (particularly the last two), readers’ need to forget might well be stronger than any desire to remember. Perhaps they do it as a service to the Alzheimer’s community.
The Celebrity Obituary
Death, just like life, can be monstrously unfair. Die in the Christmas/New Year period and you get a two-page spread. Die the rest of the year on the day of a major news story and you get one paragraph on page 23, between the horoscopes and Asian escort ads. Famous writers C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died within hours of the assassination of President Kennedy: guess which death got the headline?
Completely Unbiased ‘Best’ and ‘Worst’ Lists
Inevitably these include lefty highlights like Greta Thunberg throwing a wobbly at an international conference, a woman winning a sport you’ve never heard of or some gay or a gender-confused person announcing to the world that they are gay/ gender-confused.
Guilt Trips
Probably inspired by journos thinking about their colleagues relaxing on beaches while they are stuck in the office with only the photocopier for company. They take the form of health ‘advice’: ‘hangover cures’ which take all the fun out of drinking (‘for a clear head in the morning drink a litre of water and do twenty star-jumps between each drink’) or completely unwanted dietary advice (‘How to have a calorie-free Christmas’) or reflections on the less-fortunate (‘No Christmas for the triple-amputee slum children of Sao Paulo’).
Celebrity Holiday Plans
Who cares where Scarlett Johansson is holidaying? Unless it’s a nudist resort and there is a printed map to a suitable vantage point.
End of Year Quiz Put Together by Incompetent Junior Reporter
Lots of questions about fleeting media fads, social media ‘controversies’ and reality TV that any sane person older than eighteen would be ignorant of.
‘Big Reads’
Ostensibly to give readers something substantial to peruse in their beach chairs, these usually involve barrow-pushing of the highest order. A journo incensed at some personal issue will let loose over several pages: ‘A four-part investigation into why there are no left-handed potato peelers at Countdown.’
Recycled Stories
These are often cunningly disguised as current news. Then halfway through, after a growing feeling of déjà vu, you discover some telling detail that places it earlier in the year: ‘…when lockdown ends…’; ‘…the highly anticipated new James Bond movie…’; ‘…still popular Jacinda Ardern…’
Predictions
Only fools try to predict the future and newsrooms are full of them. They might stand a better chance of being correct if they consulted actual people outside their media bubble rather than relying on their journalistic ‘instincts’. Roman soothsayers divining the future from cat entrails have a better track record.
The Holiday Disaster
Toddler eaten by family dog.
The Holiday Miracle
Family dog vomits up live toddler.
The Summer Reading List
Typically a collection of worthy books written by worthy people (who coincidentally are married to/friends with/used to sleep with, the compiler of the list). The fiction will involve female characters suffering through patriarchy-created trials and tribulations only to finally triumph by discovering their real selves. The non-fiction will be revisionist history exaggerating the accomplishments of a black /brown /Asian/female/gay group or person. Or a critical look at something or someone the majority of us respect: ‘Captain Cook: Genocidal, Syphilitic, Opium addict.’ There will be one bio of an All Black thrown in, as a sop to male tastes, as if all men want to read about is how a No 8 learnt to tackle by practising on cows in the top paddock.
I forgot one: ‘Listicles’ – when a writer is too lazy to come up with a well-reasoned opinion piece that flows, so arranges his article as a list.
Hey, it’s sunny outside.
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