On the front page of The Dominion Post was the headline "Bad Blood" highlighted with a vivid red sports car and the story of adopted kids at the heart of a family feud over a Horowhenua farm millions. Sure it's a sad story of human greed — but on the front of a major daily when terrified families were fleeing for their lives from widespread fighting in Damascus and tortured Kenyans were appealing for justice in London?

Inside there were items about a ‘Defamation action against MP's'; an ‘Exploitation' claim in a burial dispute; a Canadian judge giving a woman with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis the right to die and the Crewes' murder debate still unresolved. A bank guard's 1976 murder case is reopened, an heiress's body is found rotting somewhere in Britain while Owen Glenn's donation of $80 million to prevent child abuse gets a fraction of the attention his political misdemeanours do.

If this is what news editors think we want to read what kind of commentary is it on our society? Sure there were some good news items such as the Carterton community rallying behind a seriously ill local youngster, Willie Apiata choosing to put his great mana into helping at risk youth foregoing the considerable money he could now make in some other spheres and an account of the research demonstrating women are the more intelligent sex.

But what I found most distressing were the references to the deaths of three women — two historical and one recent. A Coroner had made a final decision on what had happened to Irene A several years ago. But did she have to be labeled again as a prostitute after all these years?

And when Jane F's bones were found in Port Waikato and her family arranged her funeral she too was described as a prostitute. As her grieving mother said "Jane was a person with a family and friends. She was in street work for only two years of her life."

I just missed the funeral of Sophie A. Both at her funeral and in the newspaper she was described as being an unemployed housing NZ tenant and having mental health problems after embracing a dark gothic lifestyle. I knew her as a gentle woman who delighted in the hairdressing profession she trained in. Surely these women deserved to be treated with dignity especially in death? Catherine Hannan

• Catherine Hannan is a Sister of Compassion

It out-rated 3News and Campbell Live and became a trending topic world wide on Twitter, but attracted a lot of negative comment on Facebook and was generally panned by TV critics.

"Perhaps the most disturbing thing about GC is that it is funded by NZ on Air with your money and mine in a $420,000 grant for a programme that showcases young, urban Maori who have moved across the Tasman in pursuit of their 'dream of money, sex and fame'," says Catholic Media Consultant Lyndsay Freer.

"Thankfully, these kids are not representative of the majority of Maori youth or of young New Zealanders of any ethnic background," she said

"What an irony that Television New Zealand is to close TVNZ7 because its limited audience doesn't justify its continued existence, while NZOA pumps close on half a million dollars into clichéd trash like GC which is arguably the pits of the largely second-rate reality TV genre."

Freer said that if a publicly funded agency believes it worthy to promote moronic young TV characters whose dream is to fritter away their money and integrity on the Gold Coast (even if there are some who do), then there should be a re-evaluation of New Zealand on Air's mandate.

"We are all assailed by what has been called 'the globalisation of superficiality' in our reading and viewing habits. Even our daily newspapers are not averse to running front page trivia about such matters as Prince William's wife's sister's derriere or the latest celebrity who is botoxed to the hilt or who has returned to rehab for the umpteenth time," she said.

"One could go on to deplore the values and sexual exploits of these kids in GC (five girls in five nights was one guy's boast). Certainly other programmes showing on our screens are no better. But the point is that NZ on Air is mandated to use public money to encourage quality and representative local programming. The TV3 series will explore emigration from a Maori perspective and how Tikanga Maori supports them as they adapt to life in a new country," they write. Really?

Those involved in promoting overseas tourism to New Zealand just might not agree. More to the point is the comment of Labour MP, Shane Jones, 'It's probably evidence why the exodus of some Kiwis is good for New Zealand.'"

Source

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Stuff.co.nz