Sunday you have not impressed me

I seem to be the only one who is not impressed with Sunday’s feature story about the pigs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think the way that those poor pigs are treated is in no way acceptable, but to be honest, I think the way TVNZ presented this piece is not acceptable either.

You can check out the piece here.

I have 2 major issues with this piece of reporting.

1. How DARE TVNZ take Mike King, who was the front of the NZ Pork campaign, to such a horrific place and basically tell him that it is thanks to him and the campaign that pigs are treated like this. I thought that that was absolutely disgusting reporting. Mike handled himself so well, but what was TVNZ thinking? It is unfair to expect someone who fronts such a campaign to be aware of this sort of thing, or even to have asked the question. I wouldn’t imagine Tiger Woods asks Nike about sweat shops, but I don’t see him being taken to such places. As an aside – I wonder what the agency that put together the NZ Pork campaign thought of this piece, and I wonder how much share TVNZ is going to be getting of their tv budgets over the next while.
2. The grilling that the Minister of Agriculture (David Carter) received was totally unfair. For a start, isn’t he a new Minister? I’m guessing that back in 05 (I think) when that legislation was put through, it was under a different Government. The Minister handled himself very well, when asked about what he thought, he didn’t bullshit, he answered honestly; He was being presented with information he had never seen before, and would have to talk to his advisors about how to go forward. He agreed that it was not acceptable, but wanted to know if there was a reason behind why this was happening. When the interviewer pointed out that he was the Minister of Agriculture, he should know about these things, he very openly stated that he was a Cattle and Sheep farmer, and would have to ask the experts about this as it was not something he knew well.
   

I want to point out again, that I do not agree with animals being treated in such a manner, but I also do not agree with this kind of journalism.

The blurb on tvnzondemand says that Mike King now accuses the industry of legalized cruelty to pigs, I doubt he drove this piece. Sunday’s tagline is “where there’s a story, we’ll find it” I think it should be “where there’s possibly a story, we’ll make it happen”.