KEY POINTS:
If I didn't live in bucolic heaven, I would beg my husband to move us offshore. We could farm oysters in Scotland and escape the sad state of brutality into which New Zealand is sinking.
Is the media creating this frenzy? Are politicians proud of personally abusive attacks on each other? Or are we, as a people, never happier than when hurting others?
I don't know the answers to these questions. I do know I've been guilty of upsetting others unnecessarily, and I hope my apologies have been accepted as genuine and not offered simply to make me feel better.
Last week, in my opinion, we reached the nadir of nastiness. I don't recall ever agreeing with Peter Williams QC, but he was right - the chase of Helen Clark and Winston Peters resembled a witch-hunt.
Another victim is Tony Veitch. There are no excuses for what he's alleged to have done and it was, initially, newsworthy.
But we have a judicial process to deal with alleged wrongdoings whether they're committed by politicians or celebrities and we should respect those procedures, not continue, day after day, putting the boot in as judge, jury and executioner.
It turns my stomach when someone other than a convicted criminal is on the receiving end of a public flogging. Back in the mid-90s when Sir Robert Jones was booted from one end of the country to the other, during the highly publicised Securities Commission vs R.E. Jones trial, I publicly compared the media to French crones knitting by the guillotine.
Cleared then of any wrong-doing, Sir Robert is now, ironically, among the pack yelping at Peters' heels.
Can Alan Duff be bankrupted without gleeful comment? Can Dave Henderson sell his properties to the Christchurch City Council without envy politics crucifying him? Will Clint Rickards' application for admission to the Bar be fairly assessed?
No. We sit in our corners until the bell rings that someone's in strife, then we come out punching.
I got wind, last week, of a journalism seminar on reporting diversity issues, hosted by the Ministry of Social Development. The Asian Angst feature I wrote for North & South in 2006, subject of several successful Press Council complaints, would be a main topic, so I turned up to listen. Two panellists, attendees and the token overseas expert from an American journalism school voiced their critical opinions of me and my writing.
I then introduced myself as the terrible woman who'd written this junk and racist article.
Based on Joris de Bres' earlier remarks that Muslim community representatives and newspaper editors engaged in fruitful discussion after the contentious Danish cartoons were published here, I suggested instead of the combative and corrosive Press Council process, whereby complainants and journalists exchange accusatory and defensive missives, why didn't the council gather all protagonists together to discuss the problem, rationally?
That way, I said to panellists Charles Mabbett and Keith Ng, who complained to the Press Council, I might understand more about you being offended, and you might understand a little about the decision to commission and publish the story.
Wouldn't that make more sense, if the objective is better reporting?
Fat chance. New Zealanders prefer to abuse, either anonymously on selected blogsites, talkback radio or via email those they may never have met, but harbour a visceral hatred of. It is, indeed, their right and I have to take it on the chin, but I fear for this country's future if we don't voluntarily check our rabid vitriol.
I wish I'd never written that article. Not because I agree with all the criticism, but because I unwittingly pressed a button which unleashed the toxic nature of this country.
I am genuinely sorry for offending those members of the Asian community who are not engaged in criminal activity and who felt discriminated by the same stereotypical brush.
I never set out to upset them and I can't undo that hurt. I've been reminded of the salutary lesson - words have consequences and you can't take them back.
But my apology doesn't extend to those bandwagon jumpers who used the article to excuse their media equivalent of gang rape. These sadists, I suspect, will never be happy.
There's a general election around the corner and we'll observe more personal abuse before year's end.
MPs refuse to campaign on important policies, such as health and education, and instead scramble for power on the backs of negative, frenzied attacks.
It's made me, for the first time, apolitical. For what shall it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul? Does anyone care about that, or do haters have no soul?
* deb.coddington@xtra.co.nz
