Backlash

I read a very good article the other day by Kira Cochrane in the the Guardian (you can read it here), which succinctly set out some of the more disturbing anti-feminist trends in contemporary Western culture.  The article not only added some facts, figures and analysis to my impressionistic viewpoint that things had taken a retrograde step for women, but also made me appreciate yet again the value of intelligent, mildly left-wing journalism.  It's no secret that I think that NZ Herald is a right-wing rag, but even apart from that there is virtually no print media in NZ that provides analysis or comment that is a) well-written b) makes its political agenda apparent and c) thinks that events other than sport and house-prices constitute news.  Not that the Guardian is perfect. It, along with other UK broadsheets, however, does make a reader aware that there is more than one way to present apparently straightforward news.  The danger of having virtually only one national newspaper - and a barely literate, appallingly right-wing one at that - is that people think what it printed in it is 'the news' and that its spin on the news is not spin at all.