One of the essential roles of public broadcasting is to accumulate the local yarns, news and contemporary culture for future reference. So many stories slip through public grasp into oblivion, like tears in rain. The past is fading fast. For example, lessons learned by lives like Palmy Co-op founder Gordon Brown or NZ's first gonzo ambassador Joe Walding, are already gone and precious few artifacts of their existence will endure.
So when the interweb comes along, digital platform, etc. etc., you'd think you might rejoice that the Very Large Online Library has finally arrived. Putting aside the copyright trolls, there are few hurdles to spreading the public record far and wide. The present can be preserved. Then why does TVNZ not provide an index for its fabled TVNZ ondemand programs?
I'll give you a f'rinstance. While some might find The Court Report a cure for insomnia, its content carries more import than the casual channel surfer might be aware of. The issues discussed continue to be of import weeks or years after their recording, yet it is treated as fish-wrapping paper by disappearing off the site within a month. Down the memory hole they go.
The TVNZ YouTube site is loaded more towards tabloid crap than documentaries and current affairs (Close Up is neither of these things). Media 7 has taken the effort to 'Tube it right from the start, but there is no YouTube record to fall back on for TCR.
The Court Report is already run on a spaghetti string. Is TVNZ so out of whack that they can have middle management and marketing gurus out the wazoo but they can't hire a librarian or two to archive this stuff and index it for the intelligent stuff too? Not a priority, is it? Just the fluff then?
Jeez, stoners get hassles for short term memory loss. I guess it's OK if we do it collectively, eh.
