Democracy and Censorship cannot co-exist

Democracy and Censorship cannot co-exist

It is impossible to reconcile with democracy, whose intrinsic nature it is to be open and transparent, the view that there are some things that cannot and must not be known by the members of a society that claims to be a democracy. That thought has been in my mind for a number of weeks as I try to find out if some sort of censorship of international news items is in operation here in New Zealand.

The basis for my concern arose like this. Because Spanish is my first language I like reading some on-line Spanish newspapers. One in particular that I regularly read is the highly respected Barcelona daily called “La Vanguardia”. I was browsing through the Monday, 4th February 2008, edition, when this item caught my attention:

http://www.lavanguardia.es/lv24h/20080204/53432988886.html

It reported the tragic case in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, of a 15 year old boy allegedly shooting dead his parents and two younger brothers. Here’s a US web-site that reports and comments on that event:

http://www.dreamindemon.com/2008/02/03/nick-browning-has-one-hell-of-a-tantrum-kills-4/

“How sad”, I thought, and almost immediately this event reminded me of the David Bain case. I looked through the “Stuff” pages online, fully expecting this news to be covered here too. Not a mention. I took a look at other online NZ newspapers. Nothing. Several Australian and UK newspapers carried this news. Various international press agencies reported it. I monitored the NZ press over the next few days and found nothing. Because the tragedy resembled the Bain one I had fully expected this story to find some resonance in our NZ media. There was none.

Puzzled by this silence I then contacted the “Media Watch” team on Radio NZ National. Their program, on air just after the 9 am news on the “Sunday” show that is hosted by Chris Laidlaw , regularly analyses and comments on how the media do their job. Coincidentally, on Sunday 10th February they dwelt at length on the increasing extent to which the NZ media are being muzzled by a steady stream of injunctions issued by the “contempt-happy” judiciary. I thought, therefore, that they would hasten to take up my suggestion that they look into this as possibly being a case of blanket censorship over the David Bain case.

No response. So I gently chided the presenters, Colin Peacock & Cushla Managh, to at least acknowledge my email. Cushla Managh obliged, but said absolutely nothing about the issue I had raised. Silence again. The most recent thing I’ve done about this was to send a note to Chris Laidlaw, giving him the background and asking if he has an explanation. So far, no response.

What can one make of this?

1. That the news item was trivial and I’m making a fuss about nothing?
2. Or that there is in fact some blanket censorship in operation about which all news itself censored?

I have no answers and no one answers my questions. At least I can put up a blog about it and see if anyone notices!