Hard News: Media3: PIF, Paralympics, and a journalist goes campaigning
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We'll also be looking at Paralympics coverage -- or, rather the lack of it --
I've heard from somebody who works at SKY that the reason they aren't showing it is because hardly anybody watches it. People talk about how we should be showing it but then they don't watch it, or certainly not in big enough numbers.
I watched about 20 mins of the highlights package last night and I'd say that that coverage is about right (it seems to be in 1 to 2 hour highlight package blocks). It was key games and medal moments and quite entertaining. If they were showing all of it I'd fall asleep in no time and that's not much different to how I found plenty of the Olympic events.
Seeing packed stadiums is cool. Must be great for the athletes to be competing in front of that many people.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Oh bugger. There isn’t going to be enough time to come to this as well as Late. And I know 3 of the panellists!
Well, I'm doing both, clearly. We're hoping to be done not long after 6pm. It's tight, but there's certainly time.
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DexterX, in reply to
:
He felt the urgent legislation was worthwhile because if the boatpeople had come to New Zealand under the old legislation and claimed refugee status, "it could have taken years to get rid of them."
No Just get them here, give them citizenship, pay them the minimum wage and the cost of living would see to it that they would be gone sooner rather than later.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
ts a good idea to get this kind of draconian law in place
Because everyone knows all refugees make a point of checking the immigration laws before they board the boat.
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Sacha, in reply to
Just like migrants are solely motivated by our headline personal tax rates.
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Greg Sands, in reply to
I watched about 20 mins of the highlights package last night and I'd say that that coverage is about right (it seems to be in 1 to 2 hour highlight package blocks). It was key games and medal moments and quite entertaining. If they were showing all of it I'd fall asleep in no time and that's not much different to how I found plenty of the Olympic events.
I'd agree with this, but think the real problem with the coverage is that it is UK-focused, and misses the NZ perspective and interest. But the sports are interesting for a change - for example, goalball, and sitting volleyball (of all things)!
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Russell Brown, in reply to
But the sports are interesting for a change – for example, goalball, and sitting volleyball (of all things)!
Wheelchair basketball is pretty awesome. They get amazing topspin on the ball to make it drop. I certainly prefer those games to the track and field and swimming.
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Re- Paralympics coverage…
Is there ANY on free to air?
I dont have Sky but still got plenty of Olympics coverage on Prime and 1+3 News…
I hear on the RadioNZ news that we have 12+ medals, more than half gold, and I have yet to see a single awards ceremony or winning goal or finish crossing on the news or in other coverage. (I’m not saying my search has been exhaustive, but I had hoped to stumble across some just flicking channels).
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Yamis, in reply to
But the sports are interesting for a change - for example, goalball, and sitting volleyball (of all things)!
Yeah, my wife and I were joking that we'd be quite into the sitting volleyball because we're so bloody lazy :) We'd get smashed of course by the pros. My wife also commented during the goal ball how nobody ever seemed able to stop a single shot before I pointed out that they were only showing the goal highlights not all the saves that there would have been. So those highlights made them look somewhat incompetent. Perhaps they could edit that a bit better.
The wheelchair basketball shows some real talent because some of them are dribbling and wheeling and using their knees to manipulate the bounce that you can barely keep track of the ball and from the height they are shooting at it would be much harder to arc the ball in.
I reckon there might be the odd spot where the paralympians would beat the able-bodied athletes playing in paralympian events. Wheelchair basketball would be one because of the skill required to control the chairs, dribble and then the different shot angles. I guess the pro's would get it after a while.
There are some events where it was hard to see what the disability was. The archery was one. Some were standing and appeared to be fully functional, while others were shooting from seated positions.
I thought the blind sprinting was awesome, having a guide sprinting with them. That would be hard work because they'd have to be bloody fit to keep up but also position themselves just perfectly and probably have verbal commands as well to keep them on the right line.
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The highlights package is certainly not tailored for NZ - the other night they couldn't even get Cameron Leslie's name right. The Paralympics coverage is just insulting. I have been paying a huge sub to Sky for years and the one time I actually wanted to watch Sky Sport to watch live sport, I couldn't. And Sky has the arrogance to say it can't afford it. I heard a presentation by David Beatson on public broadcasting a couple of weeks ago, and Sky is certainly not poor.
By the way in two year's time I would also like to watch the Special Olympics - live. -
Lucy Telfar Barnard, in reply to
I had a quick look at UNHCR data and it looks like we’ve gone from circa 4,000 in 2000 to circa 2,000 last year. I think you have a point.
Raw numbers on their own are not necessarily as telling as at first glance. The refugee services website says we take on average 750 refugees for resettlement (aka quota refugees) per year, which is the same as it was back in 1996 when I was studying in the field. Whether that number is right could certainly be debated, but it doesn't have much to do with asylum seeker numbers.
Asylum claims tend to vary depending on what the world refugee situation is in any given year. Many refugees are not looking for immediate resettlement beyond the first country they've fled to. They go to neighbouring countries in the hope that the situation at home will improve soon so they can go home. So how many asylum seekers turn up in New Zealand varies widely from year to year depending on the level, type, and location of the world's conflicts; and asylum seeker trends (the desirability of countries as a destination waxes and wanes from year to year depending on economics as well as immigration policies); probably more than our own attempts to keep them from reaching NZ shores uninvited.
The 750 we take for resettlement (aka Quota refugees) is therefore a better indicator of our general global citizenship responsibility-shouldering than the number of asylum claims made or approved.
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Excellent Media3 record tonight. Watch for it on Saturday,
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The Para coverage is a bit lacking and very short. Comments above about only seeing the goals in goalball is dead right. There is incredible skill listening for the ball and figuring out its direction before it arrives. The delivery guy skillfully and sliently trying to put off where it is being sent from as well. The ball has to bounce along the floor so that the defenders can hear it. The lines are raised so that they players can figure out where they are on the court.
Another blind sport is 5 aside football. Now THAT is a hightly developed skill. Most people have difficult dribbling the ball with vision. If you watched some you will see the player get his guidelines from marks of the sideboards. They listen for the defenders, listen to their coaches ( I think there is one behind each goal), keep the ball on the foot, dribble around defenders purely by feel and sound and let rip. The other football are for the CPers. (Cerabral Palsy) 7 aside.
All the many letters associated with the sports are lists of the classifications of the disability. Sophie Pascoe is in the minimum disability catagory. Half a leg below the knee gone. All the other disabilities are ranked on function rather than what the disability is. Some events have combinations of disability competing against each other. IPC (International Paralympic Committee) do this if insufficient numbers are entered but they try to keep everyone seperate as much as possible.
The swimmers with the major limb disabilities are stunning. Watching a body with half an arm doing a medley. (Breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle) "paddling" furiously and I would vouch only the best able bodied would beat them!!
I was (and still am a bit) invloved with Para shooting. Coaching the 2004 Athens team. Shooting is classified into 2 grades. SH1 are those with fully functioning trunk and arms sufficient to be able to hold a rifle without support (usually with spinal injuries or parts/all of leg(s) missing. A SH2 where they cannot support a rifle with their arms. These guys use a floppy spring to support the rifle. Michael Johnson is in this catagory (Gold 2004, Bronze 2008, 2012).
Boccia is another pure CP sport. CPers have full cognition but the body just doesn;t work so well. There are 3 grades in Boccia. The highest disability ones use a helper who steers the ramp, loads the ball under instruction from the athlete. The athlete has to trigger or release the ball though.
Wheelcahir Rugby - Murderball in the states - is the rough and tumble game. Ramming machines, chair flipping the works. In basketball only hitting - but nowhere near as hard as rugby - is allowed from front to front. All the usual basketball ploys like picks and blocking are used. Wheelie Players are assigned points for the level of disability. High pointers have higher function, low pointers have less. There is a maximum total points allowed on the field at any one time so teams have to mix and match their abilities. Your need the high guys to be the speedsters and ball handlers and the low pointers to do the blocking.
Athletics: The blind guys use a runner. Some are attached with a short piece of string, others use verbal guidance. Lots of skill invloved keeping in time with your runner and it helps that they can keep up!!
The tandem cycling is a cracker. Check out some of the names on the front of the bike and you will find them ex Olympic and Tde F riders. There is a lot of competition amongst the able pilots as there is between the engines on the back. Then the blind put immense faith in the pilot remember. They are not going slow around that very steep track!!
It would have been good to have a short description for a few days outlining the classification system as it would make the events more enjoyable. Knowing what the disability is and therefore what the spectator can expect in performance would be useful.
I was first exposed to disability sport a la Paralympic style at the 1999 Oceania Shooting in Sydney in the "warmup" competition for the Olympics. I was nonchalantly watching the womens air rifle. One of them was competing in a wheelchair and had just finished and got up and walked. Well, as well as a person with spinabifida could walk. I was stunned. "But...she can walk! They are supposed to be in a wheelcahir and NOT be able to walk!" THAT was the moment when I was educated into the Paralympics World.
I was hooked.
BTW: Check out the Notable Achievements in the link. NZ had a first with Neroli Fairhall.
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Cheers Ross, that was very enlightening.
I see there's been a bit more whingeing about the lack of coverage but despite the fact that I'm loathe to defend SKY, they have to make commercial decisions. People say they will watch more, or think that they will watch more but the reality is that SKY carefully monitor this shit. If it rated they'd have it on 20 chanells a day, 24 hours a day. They are in it to make money.
Clearly it doesn't rate and it doesn't make money.
They aren't a charity. They aren't screening under 13 netball games, and they aren't screening the golden oldies games.
There are dozens of sports in NZ that get ZERO TV coverage or else have to PAY the networks to get on air. This has been a big issue for many years and always will be. The only way round it would be to get publicly funded television with a government that said "you don't need to make money, screen whatever you like".
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Sacha, in reply to
Clearly it doesn't rate and it doesn't make money
Apparently it is in the UK this time. Some figures about that on Media3 when it screens on Saturday morning.
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Moreover, why this solution - an extreme position, entirely inconsistent with our history and one that we know from Australia does not work and causes immeasurable harm.
It's a political judgement, obviously. And given that they clearly aren't coming to NZ, the fact that it doesn't work and does harm to the immigrants becomes somewhat irrelevant in the NZ context. Sad though.
It would have been good to have a short description for a few days outlining the classification system as it would make the events more enjoyable. Knowing what the disability is and therefore what the spectator can expect in performance would be useful.
I'd agree with that. I've caught the highlights a few times and they breeze through the races real quick and just give the classification - be nice to be informed what the classifications mean at the time.
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By the way, what was up with the media angst yesterday (e.g. Paul Easton’s piece in the Dominion Post ) about soccer overtaking rugby in popularity among schoolkids (according to a survey from mid-2011)?
Firstly, why was this news?
As measured by NZ sports organisation membership in 2002-2003, soccer already outranked rugby in popularity in NZ 10 years ago.NZ Golf Association 132063
Netball NZ 123069
NZ Soccer Inc (mens) 105000
NZ Cricket 102759
Touch New Zealand 94291
NZ Indoor Sports Incorporated 77065
Bowls New Zealand 60404
NZ Tennis 42312
NZ Hockey Federation 39574
Womens Golf NZ 36017
Yachting New Zealand 31338
Softball New Zealand 30320
Athletics New Zealand 29050
Basketball New Zealand 28911
NZ Rugby League 28215(Source: Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) site <http://sparc.org.nz/research/clubs3.php>, accessed October 2005. Original URL redirects to new Sport NZ site, which does not seem to have the document.)
Secondly, the media focus on rankings seems to have missed a more interesting trend in the data. The children surveyed in 2011 seem to show a higher overall level of participation in sports than in the 2001 SPARC Active New Zealand survey (though it’s hard to be sure whether both surveys are measuring sports activity in comparable terms). For example, 79% of boys and 83-84% of girls listed the most popular options of “running/crosscountry” or “swimming”. By comparison, the 2001 survey found 73% of boys and 64% of girls were “active” in the sense of “taking part in at least 2.5 hours of sport or active leisure per week”. So it’s entirely possible that what we’re seeing is not any absolute fall in popularity of rugby, but a rise in overall sports activity (and apparently more of a rise among girls), possibly as a result of more inclusive sports offerings in schools and communities.
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More to the point Linger, the sports above are (careful here) real sports whereas the list yesterday included a lot of what most would call "recreation sports" as well.
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linger, in reply to
Actually, that’s true of both the 2001 and 2011 surveys of children, so I should correct myself a little: the comparison seems to support “… a rise in overall recreational activity”, rather than specifically “… a rise in sports activity”.
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Just watched Saturday's Media3. Great programme and range of topics. Just a little comment about the fraught area of disability language. International usage tends to favour 'people first' language ie 'people with disabilities' as in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New Zealand usage in recent years, particularly since the 2001 NZ Disability Strategy, has favoured 'disabled person' as in disabled by society, or alternatively 'people with disability' (people who live with disability caused by a disabling society). This reflects the social model of disability whereby people have impairments but disability is caused by society, attitudes, law etc. 'People with disabilities' can be seen as an alternative to 'people with impairments', so can be seen as a weaker description as it does not incorporate the political or power inferences.
However, this is probably far too much confusing and unnecessary detail for the average watcher of the Paralympics. -
Steve Barnes, in reply to
I’d agree with this, but think the real problem with the coverage is that it is UK-focused, and misses the NZ perspective and interest.
If only we had public tv ...
Oh, hang on...
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