These legacy media outlets continue to get lazier and more ideologically biased in their coverage of local issues. I'm a millennial so I've never shared the reverence for RNZ that exists amongst older generations, but poor reporting like this makes it harder to have serious conversations across the generational divide.
The politics of envy displayed in the framing of Susan Edumund's article is shocking and seems engineered to provoke inter-generational conflict. It creates a clear message that old people are hoarding space, should feel guilty about this, and need to 'downsize' to create room for younger generations. Not only is this lazy opinion writing masquerading as reporting, it takes up space that could have held a more positive message for young and old alike.
For example, one of the more interesting facts in the Census data is that women and seniors are the most likely to live alone. In particular, "almost half of those living alone were aged 65 years and over (49.4 percent or 192,201 individuals) in 2023. This means around a quarter (25.3 percent) of those aged 65 years and over were living alone." - https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/2023-census-household-family-and-extended-family-highlights/
Instead of telling seniors they are taking up too much space and suggesting they downsize, Susan Edmunds could have combined these findings with those of the last in-depth study on aging Kiwis which showed that 29% of seniors who live alone report that they are suffering from loneliness whereas only 14% of those living with others share this concern (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajag.12496). With both of these ideas in mind, a more positive message could have been to encourage seniors to take on boarders in some of their spare rooms.
I don't know how popular this idea would be but, in my personal experience, it is definitely a viable proposition. I used to own a house in my mid-20s but the maintenance costs for my shoddy property were too high, so I sold up and currently live as one of two boarders in the house of an unmarried female pensioner. My landlady has already paid her mortgage, so her rental prices are much lower than similar rooms in the area, and she definitely benefits from the company provided by hosting two young boarders on her property.
When children leave home today, it can be some years before they establish a home of their own. In the meantime the family home can be a safe space to return to when needed. I'm sure we're not alone in making it clear to our (still unmarried) children that they always have a bed here, if needed.
Yet another example of post-modern critical theory think. Every time I read/hear something like this I feel the tumbrils getting closer and louder. David, your analysis is exactly how I was taught to critically approach "stories" in English in 1964, the height of the cold war. I've never forgotten being walked through an article in Time magazine about the medal tallies in the olympics, headed up with : "The US camp: where the gold is". The casual perusal of the headline told that the Americans had the most gold medals in the games. However reading the whole article one found the actual medal table further down in which there was only 1 medal difference between the US and Russia in the golds and overall Russia had more medals. In those days it was called propaganda.
I stopped reading that article about 4 paragraphs in - the Nouveau Communist Era agit-prop dripped off the opening paras in such volume that simply put another nail in The Herald’s coffin as far as I was concerned.
Nearly time for the NZ Herald to change its name to NZ Pravda - sadly that the twenty, thirty, and many forty-somethings wouldn’t cotton on if they did given their lack of historical understanding.
Balm for my girlfriend and I living in a 1910 historically listed villa on half an acre of beautiful gardens. Both of us have worked hard and long throughout our lives and now we enjoy, while still in various ways still working, the fruits of our labours.
Well opined Sir. I’m waiting for the follow up Herald article which will contain thinly veiled criticism of Pasifika families for having too many children and thus requiring too many bedrooms which of course is bad for the housing market. And of course they wont forget to mention all the evil carbon emissions the extra kids will produce…. And perhaps they will touch on why performing the haka everywhere is too energy intensive so equally bad for the planet.
These legacy media outlets continue to get lazier and more ideologically biased in their coverage of local issues. I'm a millennial so I've never shared the reverence for RNZ that exists amongst older generations, but poor reporting like this makes it harder to have serious conversations across the generational divide.
The politics of envy displayed in the framing of Susan Edumund's article is shocking and seems engineered to provoke inter-generational conflict. It creates a clear message that old people are hoarding space, should feel guilty about this, and need to 'downsize' to create room for younger generations. Not only is this lazy opinion writing masquerading as reporting, it takes up space that could have held a more positive message for young and old alike.
For example, one of the more interesting facts in the Census data is that women and seniors are the most likely to live alone. In particular, "almost half of those living alone were aged 65 years and over (49.4 percent or 192,201 individuals) in 2023. This means around a quarter (25.3 percent) of those aged 65 years and over were living alone." - https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/2023-census-household-family-and-extended-family-highlights/
Instead of telling seniors they are taking up too much space and suggesting they downsize, Susan Edmunds could have combined these findings with those of the last in-depth study on aging Kiwis which showed that 29% of seniors who live alone report that they are suffering from loneliness whereas only 14% of those living with others share this concern (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajag.12496). With both of these ideas in mind, a more positive message could have been to encourage seniors to take on boarders in some of their spare rooms.
I don't know how popular this idea would be but, in my personal experience, it is definitely a viable proposition. I used to own a house in my mid-20s but the maintenance costs for my shoddy property were too high, so I sold up and currently live as one of two boarders in the house of an unmarried female pensioner. My landlady has already paid her mortgage, so her rental prices are much lower than similar rooms in the area, and she definitely benefits from the company provided by hosting two young boarders on her property.
When children leave home today, it can be some years before they establish a home of their own. In the meantime the family home can be a safe space to return to when needed. I'm sure we're not alone in making it clear to our (still unmarried) children that they always have a bed here, if needed.
Yet another example of post-modern critical theory think. Every time I read/hear something like this I feel the tumbrils getting closer and louder. David, your analysis is exactly how I was taught to critically approach "stories" in English in 1964, the height of the cold war. I've never forgotten being walked through an article in Time magazine about the medal tallies in the olympics, headed up with : "The US camp: where the gold is". The casual perusal of the headline told that the Americans had the most gold medals in the games. However reading the whole article one found the actual medal table further down in which there was only 1 medal difference between the US and Russia in the golds and overall Russia had more medals. In those days it was called propaganda.
I stopped reading that article about 4 paragraphs in - the Nouveau Communist Era agit-prop dripped off the opening paras in such volume that simply put another nail in The Herald’s coffin as far as I was concerned.
Nearly time for the NZ Herald to change its name to NZ Pravda - sadly that the twenty, thirty, and many forty-somethings wouldn’t cotton on if they did given their lack of historical understanding.
Balm for my girlfriend and I living in a 1910 historically listed villa on half an acre of beautiful gardens. Both of us have worked hard and long throughout our lives and now we enjoy, while still in various ways still working, the fruits of our labours.
Well opined Sir. I’m waiting for the follow up Herald article which will contain thinly veiled criticism of Pasifika families for having too many children and thus requiring too many bedrooms which of course is bad for the housing market. And of course they wont forget to mention all the evil carbon emissions the extra kids will produce…. And perhaps they will touch on why performing the haka everywhere is too energy intensive so equally bad for the planet.
But yeah, maybe they won’t write that story.