Opening-night invited guest, Aussie talk show host Rove McManus, looked alternately bemused and embarrassed, as if he couldn't quite believe anyone could come up with such a mind-numbingly stupid concept, let alone rope him into appearing in it.
The ridiculousness of pairing comedy with news was glaringly illustrated when, after a round of irreverent comedic banter, the weather girl put on a mock-serious face and the show segued into a piece on the horrors of P; coming out the other end, Rove et al were (thankfully) lost for a quick recreational drugs quip.
Then the night's highlight: random guy introduced the next item - but it was the meth story again. A full minute went by before anyone realised, proving even the director couldn't bear to watch.
I hit the off button with 10 minutes still to run, and won't be going back.
There are two questions here, dear reader, and both of them are: Why?
See, I'd forgive being let down by a show promising I'd be "thoroughly entertained" if it were a bad sitcom, but this is allegedly current affairs.
Why should anyone think people need to be "entertained" by the news?
It's news; it's what's happening in the world around us, which is not manufactured for our titillation but reported for our awareness.
Bad enough there's already a seemingly-endless stream of "fake news" sites pandering to the lowest denominators of ignorance and entrenched bigotry.
Worse that powerful people seem blissfully unfazed in uttering "alternative facts" (that is, fiction) and "post-truths" (that is, lies) for the numbed masses to soak up as reality (or at least, conspiracy).
But to have to suffer a bizarre budget Kiwi-ised combination of Fox News meets Comedy Central in order to be "entertained" while digesting what serves as today's one-glance version of background information items is several steps too far.
Which begs the second why: even if the head brass think their viewers only capable of taking in the news of the day if it has a laugh wrapped around it, why would they pander to that "demand"? And in doing so, further degrade all concerned.
Surely television should be working to uplift and educate, not smother and denigrate, citizens. After all, that's what this fantastical mass-medium was supposedly going to do, back when.
Ah, me. I must be getting old. I'm sure the millennials are all wondering what the heck I'm complaining about - those who can get their heads out of their smartphones long enough to read a newspaper, that is.
The Project's promotions team is right about one thing: it's not the same old song and dance.
That's people living in suffering, dying in futility and being forgotten without being noticed. But that sort of news isn't trivial enough for us modernes, is it?
- Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
- This column is the opinion of the columnist on a matter of public interest and does not necessarily represent the view of Hawke's Bay Today.
