Wanted: real remorse
For those of us who are imperfect, by degrees life is becoming a whole lot more complicated.
On Wednesday evening at 8:30pm former broadcaster Tony Veitch appeared for the first time on one of Murray Deaker’s sports shows. By around 10:30pm TV3’s late night news segment was covering the story. This included an interview with the chief executive of an “anti-violence group” postulating that Veitch should not be on television because he hadn’t displayed “real remorse”. Ok for him to have a job, but not on television.
Aside from the fact that this chief executive would have been interviewed before Veitch went to air with Deaker at 8:30pm – he was pre-recorded – the question for communicators is: how do you do or show “real remorse” in this context?
We know from the family of young Pihema Clifford Cameron who was stabbed one night out tagging, how to do “real hatred”, because they told us, and of course that is a wholly negative emotion.
We are sinking into an abyss of clichés where we can supposedly interpret the unfathomable, and then feel free to expound our judgement on such matters as who does or doesn’t show real remorse.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m as judgmental as next man. Prudently I am not confident enough to go on national television and share these judgements. Why? At times like this I reach back to lessons learnt as a young reporter. I’d return to the newsroom to report on a court case I was covering, and write: “The magistrate was red-faced and angry……” The editor challenged me: how did I know that the judge didn’t have high blood pressure or the flu? He didn’t say he was angry, did he?
Since then I have been more careful about subjective assessments of the emotions displayed by others. Certainly it would be hard for me to pick “real remorse”.
In communications we must be careful to not confuse reality with something of lesser substance. Perish the thought that it might be: lights, action, camera – now this time give me some real remorse!
