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The
Evening Post
December 2, 1997
Letter to the Editor
One-sided journalism
by Dr John Read
Senior lecturer, Psychology Department, Auckland
University
If new
allegations of further child abuse by Peter Ellis are true, and research
shows that the vast 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. Their
programme was the most one-sided journalism imaginable. The only person
interviewed who believed that the jury and the Court of Appeal had got it
right was the police officer who the "journalists" diagnosed as
mentally unstable (on the basis that 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 their story and pretended nothing
had happened! Do they think, like so many, 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 that 32 percent of New Zealand
women are sexually abused as children.
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