In a report titled “Republicanism no 'shocking revelation,’” NZPA attempts to convince readers — and perhaps itself — that Prince William has just spent the day in a Commonwealth nation where “the republicanism debate” runs hot and deep.
Somehow we doubt that’s the case, but perhaps that says something about the company we keep. Some of the country’s major news outlets have chimed in with similarly themed pieces — see here and here.
All this republican chatter does seem to beg the relevant question of whether local media might ever be prepared to lead by example in ridding their own operations of the lingering colonial traces they're forever babbling about.
None of the country’s bigger dailies except for the New Zealand Herald, after all, employ local journalists as international correspondents, and even the Herald’s global stable is limited to a couple of Australian-based reporters. Instead, most make do with reproducing previously published material from overseas, the lion’s share of it from British titles.
Publications such as the Guardian, the Times and the Daily Torygraph are all good newspapers — especially the Guardian these days — but what they choose to cover and how it is presented invariably has a British lean. And New Zealand, as local editorialists are always reminding readers, isn’t Britain.
Wouldn’t it be fascinating if this imbalance were redressed and international news coverage in New Zealand really acquired the republican spirit that so many papers here are forever chiding political leaders and readers for failing to adopt?
Wouldn't it be amazing if chocolate fish swam?
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Mother England's editorial apron strings
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