Context is something that is often lost in the fast-paced society that we live in today, and in our haste we can often fall into the trap of jumping to a conclusion, missing such a vital component.

Growing up the saying "sticks and stones" was often used, but I don’t think that it is as relevant today as it once was.

Before the internet and the advent of "the cloud", we could safely reflect that today’s news story would become tomorrow’s fish and chips wrapper.

As my oldest child starts getting into the vulnerable teenage years, I find myself starting to have the conversations around the permanence of words and pictures that are shared.

The exponentially growing data storage of the cloud and the speed this information can be accessed means today’s news story is still there tomorrow, and pretty much into eternity.

So, when we jump to a conclusion and shoot from the hip without context, we risk those words causing damage, not just once, but for a long time.

The advent of the TMO [television match official] in rugby is a good example of this.

From the referee’s position on the field, they might not have the visibility of all the angles, and sometimes need to refer to the TMO for the context of what just happened.

This enables them to make the most informed decision which may have a defining role in the outcome of the game.

The TMO isn’t used all the time, though. There are times when the play is so straightforward that no further balance is required.

But we have all been guilty of yelling at the TV and the referee for missing something really obvious, and that too is reflective of our lack of context and awareness of the pressure that the referee is under at the time.

It’s always easy to throw stones and criticism from the cheap seats.

So, how do we ensure we are getting enough context and balance from all the information that arrives at pace across our devices?

Anybody can be a "journalist" today through the internet, and what we write can instantly reach millions of viewers the world over.

The only way to reach this kind of audience in the past was to be a published author, incredibly famous or go on a talk show.

There is becoming an ever increasing need for us to bring out our inner TMO to look at all the angles of what we are reading to make sure we have enough context before jumping to a conclusion.

Ideally, this would happen before the content being written, but it doesn’t hurt to apply it afterwards too.

I am pleased people are now jokingly using the phrase"I read it on the internet, it must be true" but at the same time I am disappointed with the great deal of unbalanced one-sided content that quite often is taken as gospel upon first read.

I am starting to wonder if this is an important life skill that we need to be teaching our children.

How to not take something at face value?

I always really enjoy reading a good investigative journalist piece, especially one that takes an unbiased balanced approach and leaves it up to the reader to form their opinion based on the facts.

Just like in the rugby game, we are looking at the angle on the TV from our couch, the referee is doing his or her best to be right in the moment, and the players are going to be milking every opportunity to get ahead.

Somewhere among all that lies the true reality of what has happened, which sometimes lends to the TMO having to look at multiple camera angles, multiple times, to land on the truth.

As a council this triennium, I feel that it is important for us all to get the full context in our communities to aid in the decisions that we are making on their behalf.

In August we had our council meeting over on Stewart Island, where Jon [Spraggon], the local councillor, took us around and gave us a good overview of all the challenges over there.

We also spent some time with the community board and some key stakeholders.

This is the second meeting that we have held in the community this triennium, the first being out in Wyndham, and this approach helps to provide us with the full picture of what we are facing as a council and what you are facing out in your communities.