Bias in march reporting Relevancy lacking

Congratulations on your commendable research into the history of racist reporting in Aotearoa’s newspapers (Monday, November 30).

It’s a great start that left me unprepared for the irony of your biased reporting of the Animal Liberation March in Wellington on November 28 ( Council sorry for clash of events, Nov 30).

You labelled 500 peaceful, wellorganised and legitimate marchers as ‘‘gate-crashing protesters’’. Instead of covering the gravity of their message, you focused on some ‘‘inappropriate’’ signs, with no mention of the appropriate ones or the point of the march. You didn’t mention the march diverting into Hunter St, avoiding the narrowest section of

Lambton Quay, or its orderly management.

According to your reporter, councillor Jill Day criticised the marchers’ messages instead of taking responsibility for her council double-booking two big events.

It is evenmore ironic that, because of the Christmas Parade, Lambton Quay was filled with hundreds of members of the generation that will be most affected by our current animal and land-use practices and their contribution to climate change.

Hopefully parents could explain the point of the Animal Liberation March to their older children in a more balanced way than your paper did. AdrienneWaghorn, Paeka¯ka¯riki

Let me help out Education Minister Chris Hipkins, regarding his being at a loss to explain falling attendance at schools, relevancy or lack thereof ( The attendance freefall in our schools, Nov 28).

Our kids (and I have three – 16, 13 and 11 – all at different schools) are acutely aware of the ecological collapse facing our planet and yet climate change is not even informally discussed in schools, let alone be a compulsory item on the curriculum.

Our kids are struggling to understand the relevancy of spending hours learning how to solve quadratic equations, while the planet simultaneously burns or drowns all around them, and no-one is teaching them why, orwhat they might do about it.

Our generation (Boomers and Gen X) created the mess; we are expecting, or at least hoping, Gen Zwill clean it up, but we’d rather not talk about it in the meantime.

They are constantly advised that the jobs of the future, in the context of A.I. etc, will bear no resemblance to the jobs of the past, but they are been educated and trained as if jobs haven’t changed since the industrial era. Relevancy, Mr Hipkins, relevancy.

Austin Mortimer, Havelock North