Letters to the Editor
More reader views on speeding, and the quality of debate and reporting on the environment.
JERRY MOTT: Black and white type thinking people like you just don’t get it (Speed denialists zoom past the evidence, InDaily, 18 November 2013). It’s not speeding cameras per se that most of the community are concerned about – it’s where they are located. The appear to be placed where they will raise the most revenue, not the most unsafe sites. Recently a friend got done for doing 64 in a 60 zone that was on an extremely safe road. There are cameras there all the time. I say again: put them where they will do the most good, not in positions where they will penalise the already financially stressed out motorist who in all reality is doing no wrong.
JOHN SIBLY: Good on you Allan (State environment boss lashes local media, InDaily, 18 November 2013).
It is the so-called popular media that force-feeds us all with the myth that “It’s the economy, stupid”. No radio or TV news segment is without its pounding of the economic and market drums.
Then, to make sure we get the message, we are lumbered with ‘The Market Report’. On that score, it is my bet that not 1% of those listening or viewing has the faintest idea about the NASDAQ or the FTSE. Yet, we have to listen to this multiple times each day even though not one in a hundred has a clue.
Regular bulletins on the health of the Earth – of the planet that supplies absolutely everything that’s essential – is urgently needed instead.
SUSAN MARSDEN, President, History Council of South Australia: Without doubt both the quantity and the quality of media coverage of the environment has seriously degraded (as has funding). This includes the cultural as well as the natural environment. Both are the responsibility of Allan Holmes’ department, and both are covered in the State of the Environment report which states: “It also looks at the state’s heritage, which is an important part of the human environment.”
Stay informed, daily
As president of the peak body for history in SA, I recently met with the Minister, Ian Hunter, to discuss the serious decline in state support for heritage, and he acknowledged our concerns but pointed out that his department had taken in total a 25% budget cut; and that the department is focused on dealing with bushfires.
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