Journalists call this time of year the silly season, because it’s the time when silly and downright stupid stories can sneak into the paper or broadcast or website. The main reason for this is because there is fuck-all going on – politics shuts down for weeks and weeks, and businesses are closed, and spokespeople are permanently unavailable. That’s why stupid stories from stupid press releases suddenly fill the news hole, and if you want to get drunk as fuck, you can follow The Spinoff’s drinking guide to summer news stories. (Although you’ll probably end up in the ER, because every single one of those fuckers given as an example there will certainly pop up in the news cycle.)
There is still big, unexpected news that can be literally earth-shattering. The Boxing Day tsunami, which hit a decade ago, caused an unimaginable amount of death and destruction, and was heavily covered, right during the slowest time of the year. This gave the story time to grow and evolve as it sat in the main headlines, as the actual horror of the event became clearer day by day, and the death toll rose and rose by tens of thousands every day.
But in general, it’s pretty fucking dire at this time of year. This isn’t such a bad thing - this is still the loveliest time of the year, and people are trying to get on with this goodwill-to-all lark, sparking up a good barbecue and going for a swim down the beach. If ever there is a time for light and fluffy bullshit, this is it, because New Zealand is all about the light and fluffy bullshit for the next few weeks.
It’s also worth noting that, incredibly, journalists are human beings too, and like to take time off to spend with family and friends at the Christmas season, and if nobody is going to answer their fucking phone, then they might as well spend the time with their loved ones, and try and break the big stuff when there are actually people to talk to.
If you’ve still got a boner for hard news over the next few weeks, it’s a good time to catch up on some of the country’s best shit from the past few weeks. Check out some of the brilliant long-form work Stuff has put out recently weeks, (especially the prison work) or just sit on a beach and absorb the knowledge from some of RNZ’s terrific new podcast series, including Black Sheep from William Ray, Russell Brown’s dig into drugs From Zero and Mohamed Hassan’s incredibly good Public Enemy series.
So, to embrace the silly season, Media Scrum will be on a short hiatus for the next couple of weeks, and will resume again on January 9, with the Golden Rule Of Journalism. We’re off to the beach.
- Steve Lombard
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