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Sunday
News
November 30, 1997
Letter to the Editor
Television ratings shouldn't come first
by Dr John Read
Senior lecturer, psychology department, Auckland University
If the new allegations of further child abuse by Peter Ellis are true and
research shows the majority of allegations are true, then those journalists
and politicians who jumped on the hysterical bandwagon created by 20/20's
"documentary" need to do some serious thinking.
TV3 needs to choose between responsible, balanced journalism and the
furthering of careers and ratings regardless of the costs to society. The
programme was one-sided `journalism'.
The only person interviewed who believed the jury and court of appeal had got
it right was the police officer who the `journalists' diagnosed as mentally
unstable (on the basis his job was stressful!)
I can think of no better example of that tendency to ignore our children when
they are brave enough to tell of their abuse than the response of 20/20 to
the new allegations. They simply repeated the story and pretended nothing had
happened! Do they think, like so many of us, that if we ignore child abuse it
will go away?
Perhaps our TV journalists might like to demonstrate a balanced approach by
highlighting the research showing 32 percent of New Zealand women are sexually
abused as children.
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