Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

It can be tough to type in cuffs. They jangle - which is annoying - and can even bruise.

See, there is a difference between what we write and what we see. The truth as you receive it is filtered, more than once, apparently for your benefit, whether you, or us, like it or not. Nanny State knows best, apparently.

Rex Leverett John Prole stood, crouched, gesticulated and gestured in Tauranga District Court on Monday – accused of murder.

The 64-year-old builder was there because he was charged with causing the death of his wife, 57-year-old Robyn Prole, also known as Robyn Phipps, who was found stabbed to death in the driveway of a Bell Street property on July 20.

We were there, in the form of a first year journalism graduate and a photographer, whose presence had been permitted due to significant 'public interest”.

Our chief reporter asked that journalist to send a report about what she saw that day.

It went: 'Prole's lawyer debated with the judge about why we shouldn't be allowed to take photos because his mental health is still in question, but the judge allowed it due to heightened public interest in the case.

'As soon as we're given the ‘yes', Bruce and another media photographer started snapping immediately. As soon as Prole realised what was going on he crouched down and hid behind the dock. The judge told him he had to stand up, but he was refusing.

'So the cop had to pull him up to restrain him and hold him and his arms behind him to keep him still while the photo was taken. Meanwhile, people in the public seats were looking at us like we were the enemy and asking us what we were doing.

'So Prole was talking, the public was talking, the judge and the lawyer were talking and the photographers were trying to take a decent photograph of a moving man while in a low-lit courtroom. The entire atmosphere was super-awkward and uncomfortable and we were made to feel like the bad guy while the person up for murder looks like he's the one being taken advantage of.

'While all this was going on, I was desperately trying to scribble down everything that was happening in my inadequate shorthand because we can't take a recorder into court.

'And yet, if we print something that is untrue we get the court coming down on us like a ton of bricks. Paint enough of a picture?”

Prole's lawyer stated he was not satisfied with the current psychiatric report, saying it failed to ascertain whether Prole is fit to enter a plea or stand trial.

In that day's end, the judge agreed to a second psychiatric assessment for Prole due to the serious nature of the charge. Prole was remanded in custody to reappear on September 3.

Make up your own mind about whether we should have taken that photograph – or whether we should have been allowed to. We're faced with those calls hourly.

From matters, such as style and grammar, to making sure never to express a two-car collision, in which blame is yet to be asserted, in terms of one car colliding with another.

Kick-off should only used in a literal context; it is impossible to have something 'at the weekend.” Then there's the deeper issues, like should we really print photos after a murder in which neighbours are seen talking to police?

And then there's Phil Rudd's (closed) restaurant, which we have been trying to touch, but have failed, so will not.

All the time, the dwindling group in an emptying building across town is rewriting our stories and peddling them as their own wares. Which, if you're counting at home, equates to replicating information, giving it away for free online, then trying to get people to buy it for $1.40 the following day.

How long can that last? Our guess, as long as there's a few folk out there silly enough to pay for old news that they could get free, sooner, from SunLive.

Huge job cuts in the major Australian-owned media companies that dot this land are testimony to the fact that paying for information is done, unless, you know, you're bribing someone, or paying someone to tape another person's private conversation. Then it's fine.
Then there's the stories we'd like to write but can't for many reasons. Perhaps the strangest part is when we only report part of what we see and know.

Never is that so true than when we report on suicides. Which basically, we can't. Check out the media's standard practice in reporting suicides in next week's Rogers Rabbits.