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Poor use of apostrophes bedevils English and the inability of machine code to make a Maori macron opens the way for an even greater offence. Most people ignore it or — worse — copy a Word file into our text-only field which generates strange characters for the '66 and 99' inverted commas, and can do a hyphen but not a dash.
Grocer's apostrophe users can be named and shamed but you've got to have some sympathy for people who do try to put the little bar over the 'a' and 'u' in various Maori words. And of course if you stay or want to stay text-only so your copy can be easily subbed by the receiving newsdesk, it's a good idea.
If you care about it, this is what you have to do.
Easy option (preferred by the media for the reason above): go for the dieresis and forget the macron. In this instance the diacritical marks overlap. The macron tells you the vowel should be long; the dieresis tells you it should be treated as a separate syllable; to do that you have to lengthen it. So that's intellectually respectable.
If it's not culturally sensitive enough for you and commercial or personal reasons override then create a Word file and attach it. The Maori language with its macrons is then an option. Or go the whole hog with HTML, when you can do anything.
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