Sometimes it’s tough deciding what you’re going to write about in your editorial. Today is one of those days. I was presented with a few options via Facebook:
An editorial about my friend’s friend Ed. (Who is Ed? I don’t know Ed. Is this some sick, lame joke?)
An editorial about how awesome the editor of another student magazine is. (You’re cool, but I’m not going to devote an entire editorial to you. And the others might get jealous.)
The annual editorial about how hard it is to write an editorial. (NO, I am not going to be the first in student media to do it this year.)
Another editorial about the VUWSA by-election. (Read the news section, I can’t be bothered venting my frustrations on the matter twice.)
An editorial about how I would choose my Gmail over the life of an adorable kitten. (I’m sorry, I live on Gmail, the kitten must die.)
Chris Carter (The poor guy’s suffered enough—not cool John Key, btw, not cool.)
Inspiration, as you can see, is pretty hard to come by. I even read the editorial that’s going in Critic this week. That didn’t help either. I’m actually stuck. Decision-making sucks. Please note this is not an editorial about how hard it is to write an editorial. Really, it’s not.
The default option is to tell you what’s in Salient this week. New Zealand has long shrugged off its reliance on the ‘mother country’ Brtitain, and slowly but surely Asia, and particularly East Asia, is becoming a more important player in our political, economic and even social relations.
Debate surrounding our relationship with China is ongoing, and is unlikely to end any time soon. Questions over issues such as human rights and labour standards still linger, and influence debate in New Zealand, at least about whether or not we should be seen to be fostering these ties. The fallout from Russel Norman’s Tibetan flag protest, and outcry over a Chinese-backed proposal to buy the Crafar farms, show that there are still issues that need to be negotiated and debated by New Zealanders regarding our relationship with China.
David Smith looks into the issue of the right to freedom of expression, using the Norman protest as a case study. Why don’t we hear about conflicts in Central Asia in the news? One of the feature writers investigates why we don’t know much about what goes on in some former Soviet states—are we too busy worrying about Afghanistan and the Middle East? Not to mention we’ve got Academic Idol in there, the VUWSA by-election results and all sorts of other goodies and surprises.
You’ll see on the back cover of this week’s issue we have conveniently provided you with a sweet cut-out mask so you can pretend to be the VUWSA President for a day. We’ve even provided you with some suggested phrases, to make the experience all the more genuine.
That wasn’t so hard after all. Have a good week. Oh and I wasn’t that serious about picking my Gmail over a cute, adorable kitten.