Hero of the Week Award - Clare Curran

Clare Curran has been getting a fair bit of grief from David Farrar and Cameron Slater lately. What these right wing sycophants seem to ignore is that she's a very switched on political commentator, and indispensable within the New Zealand blogosphere.

Today Clare decimated National's Minister of Broadcasting, in a post that clearly highlights the duplicitous nature of Jonathan Coleman's dishonest administration.

Coleman has been shown to be untruthful by saying he wants more local content but underhandedly ensuring this will not be the case. Clare writes:

TVNZ’s reinvigorated commercialism is indicative of a shift in the media environment that intensifies competition for ratings and increases the cost of providing content with high public value but sub-optimum audience appeal. TVNZ’s SOI shows why Coleman’s assurances that the content on TVNZ 7 will still be available is mistaken. Diversity of digital platforms do NOT mean a diversity of content.

...and just yesterday Clare succinctly summarized the current state of affairs within our broadcasting regime:

To incentivise competition - and get the best from it - we need to be aware of the extent to which the ownership and control of our digital media lies outside New Zealand, and whether our access to content is limited by those who run the media system in their own interests. I think that’s an important issue right now. Don’t you?

It's a most important issue, and perhaps not just in the way Clare has outlined within her most excellent post.

As we all know, technology has become more and more powerful, and without the quick and effective control of that development, we cannot control our own futures. Self determination of information should be paramount to our democratic society.

What I'm getting at is an increase in funding, so New Zealand can enhance the current technology available without the backlog of predetermined controlling measures that are inherent within the imported platforms we currently utilize.

I think Clare Curran gets it... that's why she wins a Hero of the Week Award.