Ignorance in the media

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Mediaworks presenter Heather du Plessis-Allan recently compared culturally significant Maori land sites to a midden, or a 'domestic rubbish dump' in an article on Story. Luckily her comments were picked up by a member or the public, a reported as racist and insensitive to the Broadcasting Standards Authority. Mediaworks refused to acknowledge the comments as racist and defended the article, saying that it's point was to show that even culturally significant sites could sometimes be "unremarkable in their appearance." Their justification for this ignorance is far from acceptable. It reflects a (deliberate) attempt to circulate the cultural insignificance of Maori culture, and keep Pakeha identity/culture as the dominant, universalized norm or way of doing things. Even if the sites were middens, Plessis-Allan didn't go into the long history of the iwi, the whanua, the whakapapa, culture and traditions around the land. The lack of understanding about the land and resources on a spiritual level reflects a need for Maori to take back representations of their past (by talking in), their land and identity so that representations aren't skewed and the mana and sacredness of their culture and traditions aren't disempowered and disregarded as unimportant, or lesser value to colonialist discourse and Western norms.