Story of The Day

The media in New Zealand is like a pack of wild dogs. It seems as if they jump on a new 'scandal' every other day which completely engulfs all media coverage. Except the scandal really isn't something of monumental importance. They just like to highlight a certain issue of the day and beat their point home. Here's a couple examples recently: (1) The NZ Rugby All Blacks Jerseys being sold by Adidas are $220 NZ. Even though this has been the price for a while, all of a sudden every newspaper, radio and TV story touched on the outrageous price when they found out the jersey could be purchased online in the US for half price. The Adidas brand managers even appeared on for an interview on the nightly news. (2) Price of Milk. This became a media target and after plenty of commentator analysis, the politicians jumped on the ride and are to be conducting a formal study on the appropriateness of the price of milk.

I couldn't imagine either of these actually being a large news story in the US. This has to be the difference between a country of 300 million plus and 4 million. Little things get more attention here. So this brings me to todays New Zealand Herald. On the FRONT page (granted not lead story: that has to do with people that leaving restaurants without paying the bill), headline states "Nervous Americans pull plug on waka ride for World Cup Welcome" (A waka is a Maori canoe). The first paragraph reads "They may have the courage to face the world's rugby giants but World Cup minnows the USA Eagles are too nervous to take a waka trip across the Whanganui River." Sensationalism to the extreme. Later in the story it notes safety and security reasons prompted the USA to decline the waka ride. Check out the comical cartoon on the right. We'll see how much coverage this gets in the next couple of days.

The NZ media is always good for a laugh. Now just wait until those USA minnows win a few games at the World Cup! It's 16 days away and the country seems ready to burst with anticipation. Dana and I are going to the USA/Ireland game and NZ/Japan games.


In other activities we visited the Auckland Botanical Gardens this week. Another fantastic public amenity at no cost to visitors. Some of our visitors may be interested in seeing this while in Auckland. Mom Hines and Mom Morris I am looking at you.  Also, Special Birthday Wishes to Pop Pop Morris this week!