Sunday, 22 May 2011
More one-sided media beat-ups - Sunday on reproductive technology
Tonight Sunday (TVOne) ran a highly emotive, remarkably one-sided story about people travelling overseas to buy eggs or embryos, focusing on two examples. It repeatedly attacked New Zealand law, which prohibits the sale of eggs, sperm or embryos, just as it prohibits the sale of children or human organs. Only one person spoke defending the law, near the end. There was no mention of the issues relating to children conceived from "anonymous" eggs, spern or embryos, or the fact that one of the prime reasons for the law was the lessons learnt from closed stranger adoption. It repeatedly said we needed to have the debate about this, when that was what we had when the law was drafted. It implied that we were the odd ones out in not allowing such sales to take place, although this is not true. I'm just more and more appalled by the dire state of socalled journalism here now.
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3 comments:
Yeah, I half-watched this and while it was interesting to see the stories of those two families, I am sure it would be possible to be sensitive to their situations while also hearing a bit more about why the law is as it is. The thing that struck me was the way that one of the interviewees talked about choosing a eggs as being like choosing a car in that they were able to be quite specific about what they wanted. A really difficult and fraught area that, as usual, was poorly handled by our media!
I find it pretty irresponsible for them to be calling for a debate but not presenting both sides of that debate, as a media organisation. I don't expect those with an interest to be balanced, but that is one of the key roles of the media, surely.
Sadly, the key role of the Media is to turn a profit. Not present balanced or unbiased information.
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