why i'll be avoiding the news for a bit

i can not believe that even radio nz is sounding like the women's weekly magazine today. really? we need breathless reports of what prince william is doing, every hour? now he's visited this place, now he's said that. surely i'm not the only one who totally doesn't care? more than that, what prince williams does IS NOT NEWS. it's celebrity gossip for the entertainment section, which radio nz doesn't have.

i expect this kind of stupidity from tv news, which is why i don't watch it any more. but i would have thought that any kind of reputable media outfit would give a brief report, then move on to the important stuff. like fires in the nuclear reator thingies in japan. like all the people who are homeless. like what's the latest situation in libya, and how the people in the eastern suburbs of christchurch are getting on.

i wonder if our bonny prince went to the poorer parts of the city? i haven't been listening to or watching the coverage, but i'm willing to bet there were no opportunities for the poorer of his grandmother's subject to air their grievances or to give an eye-opening account of what life is really like. the only session which wasn't to be totally managed was the meeting of the families of the pike river miners who had died in the coalmine. but of course, media weren't allowed in.

this whole trip is a combination of a PR exercise for the monarchy and a PR exercise for politicians. somehow the latter doesn't rankle as much as the former. that the monarchy gets so much free advertisement, in order to keep that institution going for as long as possible when there is no reason for it to exist at all, well yes, that makes me really angry. and it angers me when our state-funded broadcaster provides this kind of advertising, again for no good reason at all. if people are interested in that sort of thing, they should go to the entertainment media.

on top of that, there is japan's emperor, called out to make a public statement in the midst of a potentially large disaster. i don't want to be insensitive to the feelings of anyone of japanese heritage, as i understand the culture around that institution is quite different to the british monarchy. let me just say that it seems many of the people there weren't reassured by his statement, so his status didn't appear to be of much help.

i'll go back to a point i've made before: i just can not understand how these royal families convince people to accept their status and position. though the in-your-face covering-all-forms-of media unpaid-for advertising campaign goes a long way to explaining it. ergo, if i want my campaign to become queen of nz to gain momentum, i first need significant amounts of capital to pay for a kick-a** PR campaign. unfortunately, i also believe that the state should be paying for said campaign, just like it has for our bonny prince. so a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation there.

while i think about how to resolve this conundrum, i shall continue to avoid the news for the next couple of days. there's not much option really, if i want to stay sane.