Because it’s always darkest (just) before dawn

I don’t know about you, but the current – and by far longest – COVID-19 Lockdown is having a much more serious effect on my mental well-being, than the first – and subsequent ones last year.

Then – like most other Kiwis by the look and sound of things – I was content to let Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her panel of experts, led by Dr Ashley Bloomfield, make the ‘big decisions’ for me.

Now – I’m not so sure…………….to the point where I honestly wonder where it is all going to end. Of course I’m vaccinated, in fact I got my second shot (way) back on Aug 04. I’ve also been particularly good at sticking to my home and family bubble – to the point where when I finally needed to use ‘The Mighty Camry’ last week the battery was flat-as and I had to buy a new one (via click & collect from my local Supercheap Auto branch).

‘Despair’ is arguably too strong a word to describe how I feel. Mainly because it is defined as ‘the complete loss – or absence – of hope’ …….and though I definitely do feel battered and bruised by the circumstances which – through no fault of my own, I find myself in – they are not completely ‘hope-less’).

Despair, however, is the closest word, I – as a wordsmith of long standing, remember – can come up with. So, we’re not talking simple ‘pissed off-edness’ or petulance.

Also, one of the best things about the word despair, is that it can be used both as a noun – i.e. ‘the despair I feel’ – and as a verb. I despair, for instance, of the anti-vax ‘brigade.’ Not to mention the idiots in our midst who claim that to get vaccinated (or not) is some sort of ‘freedom’ issue.

I also despair of anyone in a position of power or public trust who uses that position to cast doubt on either the concept of mass public vaccinations per se, or the decision by the Government to go with the Pfizer vaccine.

As far as I am concerned New Zealand is ‘at war’ and any freedoms we might have taken for granted BEFORE the arrival of COVID-19 and the ‘pandemic’ were ‘earned’ by previous generations and that they are more a privilege to us living in very different circumstances than a right.

Allied to this I despair about the selfishness that many of my fellow Kiwis are now exhibiting – the amazing social cohesion of 18 months ago which led to the ‘Team of 5 Million’ cliché now beached – shipwrecked even  – high on the dunes of a mix of ‘I’m alright Jack’  optimism and good old, ‘I’m not very bright but I’ve never let that get in the way of me doing anything’ ignorance.’

Not that I entirely blame them.

In fact, I blame much of the despair I feel for the deterioration in social cohesiveness to the way the mainstream media has approached the subject.

As a consumer, for instance, I feel incredibly short-changed by the callous, and self-serving way in which TV3 (my de facto channel of choice) and in particular the way its Newshub operation has framed the so-called COVID-19 debate.

Forget about the end-user (me) for instance, Newshub’s coverage is all about polishing the halos of the channel’s supposedly courageous front-line reporters, Tova O’Brien, Jenna lynch and Amelia Wade.

Never mind that as a reporter I well know that you NEVER  break a story sitting on your arse posing questions at post-event press conferences. Yet, if you  have ever watched one of the PMs’ 1.00pm COVID-19 press gatherings you can guarantee the first question will come from…Tova O’Brien…or if she is up to playing the game herself, O’Brien’s equivalent on TV1’s Parliamentary Press Gallery team, Jessica Mutch McKay.

Though I have spent the  bulk of my own writing career as a journalist working on special interest publications which have never required the ‘foot-in-door’ approach obviously (still) favoured by Newshub’s Director of News, Sarah Bristow, I know enough about the news gathering game to grasp the fact that the viewing public is not stupid and that you insult its collective intelligence at your peril.

In a similar vein, I despair at the way the news gathering, and dissemination process has been marginalised by the apparent need to ‘spin’ each and every yarn ‘up’ to meet some apparent ‘golden mean’ of newsworthiness.

Making this marginalisation of ‘the news’ even worse, is the idea that;

1/ It will be more ‘palatable’ (which you can read as ‘easier to digest’) if it is presented not by a professional news reader, or even by a former reporter…. oh no… but by a professional ‘piss-taker,’ aka a bloody comedian! Which is what TV3’s increasingly threadbare ‘The Project’ is all about.

2/ And that because most of us can no longer be trusted to make up our own minds on any particular subject not only will reporters helpfully guide us by using emotive terms like ’gas guzzlers’ to describe older, less fuel-efficient cars, but commentators (aka opinion formers) have a now been given carte blanche to add their two cents worth to the subject du jour – whether they know anything about said subject or not.

Radio, of course, used to be the undisputed home of this sort of blurring of all the various lines which used to exist between news, opinion and, er, advertising, but as producing and uploading video footage (usually these days, via a third-party entity like YouTube, Facebook or Twitter) has become more cost-effective, we are now seeing Radio NZ stories appearing in both video and text form on Twitter and Facebook, and Mike Hosking doing direct-to-camera pieces for his NewstalkZB ‘page’ on Facebook.

One of the problems, of course, with opinions, is that everyone has them. And as I know I have found out writing my own weekly columns for this very website its hard work coming up with something readable and interesting week in/week out…or at least it is without resorting to the media equivalent of ‘shooting fish in a barrel….’also known as taking cheap shots at public officials making unpopular decisions in the name of efficacy.’

In my own case MotorSport NZ has provided some fairly tasty Snapper for me to aim my bee-bee gun, and squeeze the odd shot off at.

In saying that Editor Benjamin Carrell operates a scrupulously fair ‘play the ball not the man’ policy in regard to what goes up on Talk Motorsport.

While Benjamin is definitely not afraid for me to pick out, highlight, then pull apart issues in terms of governance and or decision-making at the top levels of our sport he sees little value in the sort of personality-based attacks on the individuals you might see on one of your more opinionated on-line ‘friends’ unregulated Twitter feed or Facebook page.

The big problem with a bloke like Mike Hosking, of course, is that after listening to him ranting on and on about Prime Minister Jacinda’s Ardern’s myriad apparent ‘failings’ over the past 18 months you start to see a pattern emerge….

I sense the same sort of anti-establishment matrix across most of the nation’s print paparazzi; despite the majority, I’d imagine, voting Labour at the last election.

It’s as if they – literally – can’t help themselves, and that ‘having supped wi’ the devil’ or ‘dipped their quill into the well of poisonous ink,’ once, they are doomed by some evil old journalist/witch’s spell to never be able to see the good in some person or situation ever again.

Which is sad really, because as the days get longer and the temps higher, I find myself looking forward rather than backward, up rather than down, and being thankful for what I can still do under this interminable Level 3 Lockdown rather than getting all pissy about what I can’t.

Sure, things are all fairly shit in the 09 calling area (and large parts of the 07 as well by the look and sound of things) right now. And I think I have every right to feel a little flat at the moment.

I take a lot of heart, however, from a saying my old Mum used to wheel out when things weren’t going particularly well when I was a kid.

“Everything always looks darkest (just) before the dawn,” she used to say. “If you wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning don’t lie there worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow.

‘Roll over and try to get some sleep because I guarantee you, everything will look better in the morning!”