What a pleasure to enjoy a long read
In an age, when the mass media reporting on “the news” is little more than a series of short soundbites and clickbait-driven headlines, it is all the more exciting to come across some in-depth investigative reporting in
Northern Advocate. I refer, in particular, to two recent feature articles written by Lindy Laird. The first of which was the article entitled
Access Denied published in the “48 Hours” section of last Saturday’s issue of the Northern Advocate.
This was an informative, insightful and disturbing piece of writing about unresolved environmental and cultural issues in the Wairua River catchment area.
The second article, Great White Sharks — What is attracting them to Northland? appeared the previous week. Ostensibly, the story was about the double stranding of whales and the mauling of a surfer by a shark on Northland’s Ripiro Beach. However, the real star was the Ripiro Beach landscape itself. The opening paragraphs are as good an example of evocative writing that I have come across.
In a rushed world, it has been a pleasure to make time to have a long read, with sufficient time to take in new information, consider different viewpoints and to think about the issues raised. That’s why the freedom of expression of ideas, through good writing and skilful journalism together provide the pulse for a participatory democracy.
Thanks, Northern Advocate for allowing a place in your paper for feature writing of an investigative nature — and, thanks, Lindy for reminding us, through your craft as a journalist, of the power of language.
Peter Garelja Glinks Gully
New old ideas
Congratulations to the organisers of the “Kiwi Bottle Drive”. It never ceases to amaze me that almost everything that is successfully workable in New Zealand, ends up being made redundant. Bottle drives and the bottle deposit scheme (during my youthful years) was one such event where these were recycled leading to zero waste. Suddenly after decades of overfilled landfills, clogged waterways and oceans our leaders have finally woken up to the fact that a great practical, commonsense idea was dumped and it is now becoming so fashionable that it could with the
growing ground swell be reinstated. How do they get it so wrong?. Our “Tall Poppy” NZ syndrome culture is alive and well. When will they learn not to keep throwing the baby out with the bath water? The Baby Boomers may be “dinosaurs” but they can teach the Millennials many old practical tricks.
Marie Kaire Ngararatunua