In the latest “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and I talk about how to approach disinformation in the contemporary media landscape and Global South neutrality or support for Russia in the Ruso-Ukrainian war. The discussion takes a few turns.
Kiwipolitico
Hola Pablo
A good conversation you had with Selwyn. It was interesting for Selwyn to bring context to the issues regarding RNZ’s ” Russia gate ” scandal
I want to cherry pick two words and comment
” Cultural problem ” (Minute 52 approx)
We New Zealanders have a cultural problem about languages… both foreign and Maori
We hide behind the convenience that English is the business language of the world. IE We speak English… you need to too.
It demonstrates one of our insecurities as a nation
Hola Eduardo,
Gracias por el comentario. I thought that it was worthwhile to have Selwyn weigh in on journalistic practice because he is the real deal and a person of high integrity and ethical standards. Your comment about languages is interesting because it shows how NZ is a very provincial place at times. My son is now getting Maori at his school and I occasionally speak to him in Spanish and it is very clear that, as pretty much every child linguist will say, the introduction of foreign (and indigenous) languages is a benefit onto itself beyond comprehending what others are saying. That is because it exercises the brain so that it can make inferential leaps between languages using simple sentence construction logics. We have found that te Reo and Spanish share some similarities so have worked with the boy to use that to his advantage. Now if only I could get my te Reo skills up to snuff!
Un abrazo.