Editing the Herald poll

As most of you will no doubt be aware, last week saw the sad, albeit hopefully temporary, end of the online Herald poll, after an army of online cybercriminals, probably learning their tactics from violent video games, made polls come out approximately 50%-50%, instead of the 96%-4% result they were designed to achieve.

I think that made us all a little sad, but I have good news - the first Editing the Herald poll! Every day every week whenever I can be bothered, you, the reader, will be able to express your opinion... in poll form! It's democracy in action.

Today's question is:

Which story would did you most like to see on page A3 of the New Zealand Herald?

• A report on a daring cheese theft?
• An article about the estranged, adopted daughter of a washed-up former celebrity?

I realise that this may be a tough decision, so here's a cheat sheet.

"Cheese burglars take the biscuit" *chuckle*

Two people have been arrested and charged with burglary after allegedly hauling several boxes of cheese off a train and into their vehicle.

[...] A rail worker passing by at around 7am spotted the pair running back and forth across a rail line, loading boxes into a car near Halcombe - about 30km northwest of Palmerston North.

As he approached, they sped off in the car before throwing boxes of cheese out of the window at him, trying to get him off their tails.

Sounds exciting. But then there's:

"Police drop charges against Millie Elder"

A smiling Millie Elder left court today after police dropped three serious drug charges against her.

The estranged daughter of broadcaster Paul Holmes was facing charges including possession of methamphetamine - also known as P, two charges of possessing ecstasy (class B) and one charge of receiving stolen property.

It doesn't look like she's smiling to me. Anyway, it's good to see that the Herald is giving an appropriate amount of attention to the struggles of a clearly troubled young woman, and giving her the support she clearly needs by putting photos of her in the paper. But in one sense it's worrying: if the newspaper business model folds, and quality journalism goes with it, who will bring these stories to the public's attention? How will democracy function, how will society function if... oh, sorry, I seem to have drooled on my keyboard.


Anyway, I don't actually know how to put a poll on here so you're all just going to have to imagine it.