Telling stories

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , ,

You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
thank God! the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there’s no occasion to.(Humbert Wolfe)

It is an image for our times, the pulling down of the statue of the dictator Saddam Hussein. We all know now it was a fake – the statue was pulled down by American soldiers (one of whom made a big mistake, draping American flag over head of statue, which had to be quickly removed). The “cheering crowds” “filling the square” were some of the Iraqi exiles brought in by the Americans, made to look like a big crowd by making sure cameras were focused right up close on this small rent-a-crowd.

The reason for this fakery? It had to be created to support a narrative. Defence Secretary Rumsfeld had claimed, as the invasion was about to begin, that the Americans would be welcomed with cheering crowds throwing flowers to the troops. That is, the narrative was a replay of American troops liberating Paris in 1944. The reality was that it was a replay of the Germans invading Paris in 1940. So in the absence of beautiful women with flowers, the “pulling down the statue” had to be faked. Had no effect on reality, of course, as the next few years showed, but the images kept the public content and were shown over and over by the compliant media.

I have considered this incident at some length because it has become the model for much that passes as mainstream journalism these days, and because politics has evolved to take advantage of it. Just yesterday Kevin Rudd turned up in a street and was, according to media, “mobbed” by an adoring crowd, thus proving his popularity. In an article headed “Rudd humbled then mobbed” we had

“Hitting the streets of Brisbane yesterday Kevin Rudd was mobbed by excited supporters ahead of Monday’s vote on the Labor leadership.” and then remarkable journalist honesty – “The Rudd’s walk through the Mall was a chance for photographers to capture the images to reinforce the message from today’s three opinion polls”

Now the thing looked staged to me, like the Hussein statue. Cameras in close-up suggesting throngs (one later from distance showing small group and many of them the media). A sort of uniform look to the young people (someone later queried a Young Labor group). I don’t know the truth, but the point is, nor did the journalists. An event had been organised which matched their perception (and some opinion polls) of Rudd as rock star, and no one was going to rock that boat. Too much effort perhaps, or not suiting the agenda of journalist or media proprietor.

These kind of stunts have become an almost daily part of Tony Abbott’s free media campaign. Day after day the media would be summoned to see Tony – in hard hat, white coat, overalls, swimming costume, goggles – gut a fish, sit in a truck, hammer a nail, swim in a race, buy some cake. All content free – just an extended photo opportunity and a sound bite, off with the goggles and white coat, on to the next stunt. And yet, each night the journalists would happily, uncritically, report this rubbish as if they were a Liberal Party advertising agency doing a paid promotion. As they effectively were.

And day after day, when they weren’t practising journalism as stenography to the powerful (and practising a journalism that relies on saying and doing exactly what your colleagues are saying and doing), they were promoting false balance, citing anonymous “sources”, and promoting, almost unanimously (some overtly, some subtly), the interests of conservative political parties.

Whenever I, and others, make observations like this, we are met with a strong reaction from journalists. Most, probably all, journalists see themselves as a noble profession, part of the fourth estate, defending the people against the first two estates (well, not the church of course. Or royalty. But, you know). In every journalist’s knapsack is a Woodward baton. And a phone on which the first Watergate call will be received.

They are good people, family people, loving children and pets, good citizens. And hard-working, highly trained professionals doing stressful jobs that are totally misunderstood outside the profession. Oh, and proprietor interference with what they produce? Come on, get your tinfoil hat off mate.

So why the huge disconnect between how journalists perceive their own profession and how it is perceived by a number of anonymous highly ranked commentators? Two reasons I think (I’m talking political journalists here, but the same thing would apply to sports journalists, business journalists, entertainment journalists). The first is that the journalists, whatever media outlet, seem to see themselves as something of a club, and a beleaguered club, of people misunderstood by the general public. Much in the same way as politicians and policemen, journalists think no one appreciates how hard the work is, what long irregular hours they work, what skills are required. They work alongside each other, socialise, marry each other, move between different media outlets, give each other industry awards. They no longer compete with each other for “scoops”. Instead (just as in the lack of competition between banks, oil companies) they ensure that if one person does a story everyone else will immediately do the same story in exactly the same way, so no one gains any advantage. Breaking ranks to either ignore a particularly crap story, or investigate something others were not asking questions about might leave you exposed on a limb, making a mistake. Besides, to question something your mates were accepting would be unsporting, might embarrass, expose, a friend, and you won’t do that to your friends and don’t expect them to do it to you.

But it gets worse. The journalists not only work and play with each other but with the subjects of their work, the politicians. All the same things apply. No one understands them like each other, they share a workplace, intermarry, party together, are each other’s BFF or worst enemy. They share secrets, and, like doctors and priests, journalists can guarantee the secrecy of the confessional. Say what you like, political person, and I will publish, anonymously, no more and no less than you want published to suit your purposes. You win, I win (promotions and by-lines and tv shows if secret big enough), we are all looking out for each other in parliament house. And here too, no one asks awkward questions, or friendships could be lost, access to secrets curtailed. You scratch my back, I’ll report your political stunt as if it is the Gettysburg Address. But even more than that I think. The journalists have come to see themselves as players, politicians themselves, but for minor accidents of pre-selection. They are not umpires, linesmen, referring games, reporting infringements, showing red cards, but out on the field running and tackling with the rest of the team. Will identify so strongly with particular individuals, particular political parties, that their interests become indistinguishable, and it is not uncommon to hear a journalist say “we” when they mean the political party of their preference.

And that almost does it, with one final polish. I don’t think Rupert Murdoch and other media owners (including the new intrusion of billionaire miners) get on the phone to reporters and say “spike that story” or “lose that tape” or “praise that politician” as they are said to have done in years gone by. You will often hear them and their employees denying that any such instructions are given and I believe it. Why would you bother? Much easier (and with the advantage of plausible deniability) to use the pyramid approach. Appoint a managing editor (or whatever is the senior post) who is absolutely sympatico to the owners ideas, politics, philosophy, so close as to be like Young Liberal twins separated at birth. He (occasionally she) then appoints the next level of management, half a dozen editors, say. Needless to say each of those will have the right family background, have attended the right school, and will undergo careful interviewing to ensure not a breath of heterodoxy has crept in at, say, university. Leave those editors, producers, whatever to appoint the next level of journalists, presenters etc, the public face, coal face people. Should go without saying that those people in turn, the actual, so to speak, workers, will all be of the right kind, and so on.

From then on the thing runs itself. Not only have you handpicked the team individually, but all of them having similar world views means they reinforce each other’s approaches. And since all the other media outlets have been similarly staffed, the linkages will ensure that all can be relied upon to come up with the same stories, presented in the same ways, none of which, it can be guaranteed, will make a hair on the proprietor’s head curl (although, just for the look of the thing, an occasional maverick will occupy a column). He or she can relax, knowing that their business and political interests are being soundly cultivated, and simply count their money.

And the journalists, working hard, can remain indignant that anyone could suggest there is political interference in their noble calling.

Hard to think of any losers in that system of managing the fourth estate.

Well, except for the third estate of course.

Three coins in a fountain

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by politics • Tags: , , , ,

Our extended family have always been inveterate coin collectors (and stamps but that’s another story). Oh not collectors in the sense of joining clubs, and shopping for rarities online, and having every Australian threepence, or a 1930 Australian penny; but collectors in the sense of putting in a jar unusual coins picked up here there and everywhere and keeping them for the next 100 years in the sure and certain knowledge that one day they would be worth a lot of money to the great grandchildren.

So I have been going through the accumulated results of all this, and have old coins spread all over the table, trying to see what they are, and what, if anything they are worth. Short answer – nothing. I keep finding bits on the internet saying things like well, everyone collected 50 cent commemorative coins and there were millions made, so worthless. We have a lot of 50c commemorative coins. Same for every jar, every box, every bag I opened. You want to know the least valuable old coins from Australia, Britain, America, France, Greece, New Zealand, Japan, Palestine, I’ve got ‘em on a list.

Hang on “Palestine” 1935, that’s interesting. Wonder how … Oh yes, of course. Have a photo of my father in Tel Aviv in the war. And then I start to think about the coins not in terms of monetary value but in terms of family history. And bit by bit the pattern emerged. An overseas holiday here, a job in New Zealand there, a trip to visit relatives in England, men at war (Middle East, New Guinea), migrations to Australia, men at war (Gallipoli, France), migrations to Australia. Here a soldier on leave empties the coins from his pocket; there a family puts coins from the old country, no longer of use, in a jar in a new country; and over here fathers, mothers, grandmothers, after holidays, show young children the interesting foreign coins they have in purse and wallet.

So elements of a family history, but even more than that. Many of the coins are worn, very worn. It’s one of the reasons they lack value, the coin collectors preferring “uncirculated” coins. But the wear makes them seem more valuable to me. There are British pennies so worn smooth that they are almost unreadable, dating back to mid-nineteenth century and handled by thousands, tens of thousands of people; rubbed in wallets and purses and trouser pockets and shop tills. Not so much six degrees of separation, as I hold an 1851 penny in my hand, a young Queen Victoria on one side, but a connection with all of the people who have handled it before me.

Worthless?

I can hear that thunder roar

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by Climate Change, Environment • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Yet more Queensland floods. Third time in about a year for some towns? Was struck by one farmer’s comment – “I’ve lived beside this creek for 65 years, but I have never heard anything like the frightening roar of the water last night”. The roar would clearly stick in his mind the rest of his life as something beyond anything experienced since a small child growing up. I am willing to bet that he would be saying to himself, not just “what the hell is going on?” as the creek roared and floodwaters rose, but “what the hell is going on?” in a more general way. Also willing to bet that more and more farmers, hit with more and more disasters, are asking themselves the same thing. Possibly asking themselves why their trade and political representatives haven’t been telling them.

Evidence for climate change on the ground, where people actually experience it (especially farmers, ears eyes nose to the ground), was never about “a drought” or “a flood” or “a hot day”, in spite of the pretence by some that this was what was meant. Which led to the obvious retort, well, of course we’ve had droughts, floods, hot days before. Led to nonsense from Senator Joyce whenever there was a cold day in Canberra “so much for global warming, ho ho”.

It was always about RECORD events – record high temperatures, record long droughts, record high floods, record sequence of high temperatures, record numbers of floods, record warm nights. Of course years vary from “good” to “bad”, vary particularly with the oscillation between La Nina and El Nino events, always have. But on an upwardly rising curve of air and water temperatures, with more and more heat stored in the oceans especially, the extremes of weather will become more extreme. More and more high temperature records will be set, more and more record flood events. Indeed it now seems clear that the El Nino-La Nina cycle will become even stronger (a recent study for New Zealand has shown, but the same will apply to eastern Australia) and with higher frequency.

So more and more farmers, both here and in NZ, are going to experience events they have never experienced before. Are going to have to try to deal with extremes – of record floods following record floods, of longer droughts, of longer sequences of higher temperatures. I doubt there is a farmer in the land at the grass roots level who doesn’t know this, doesn’t sense the change in the seasons, the response of plants and animals to those changes. With your ear to the ground everyone can hear the roaring sound of climate change arriving.

To be hanged with the bible

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by Atheism, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When the bible was written humans* didn’t know:
About bacteria and viruses and parasites
Blood circulation
Earth going around sun
More than 5 planets
About galaxies
There was a southern hemisphere
Earth round
What lightning is
That whales aren’t fish
What mental illness involves
About genes and inheritance
About Chinese, Aztecs, Zulus, Aborigines, Navaho, Japanese, Papuans, Bushmen, Mayans, Eskimo, Indonesians, West Africans, Britons
Composition of matter
Any history
Composition of moon
About fossils
There was a western hemisphere
The age of the Earth
About the great apes
About continental drift
About kangaroos, lemurs, opossums, emus, iguanas, alpacas, platypus, kiwi, gila lizards, sloths, tree frogs, humming birds, horseshoe crabs, peripatus, tasmanian tigers, rhinoceros

When bible written humans had never:
Flown
Travelled faster than a horse can run
Communicated except by speaking directly
Elected a government
Swum under the ocean
Read books
Looked through a telescope
Looked through a microscope
Warmed themselves by anything except wood fires
Been cured by antibiotics
Had a surgical operation
Seen a hospital, school or factory
Seen a town of more than few thousand people

When bible written humans were happy about:
Slavery
Women as chattels
Divine kings
Child marriage
War
Destruction of environment
Gods living on mountains
Child labour
Torture
Human sacrifice
Ghosts
Magic

And yet there are people in 2012 who believe everything written in the bible. There are people who use it to determine who to vote for, where to send their children to school, how they feel about burning environmental and social and economic and cultural issues. And if that wasn’t bad enough, incredible enough, we can’t just smile wisely and say “there there, one day you will grow up” as we might to a child who tries to live their life by, say, the Harry Potter books, because there are people who want to insist that the rest of the world obey these silly old books as well. There are people making all kinds of pronouncements about the environment, about bringing up children, about justice, about science, about art and literature, based not on some independent and rational analysis of an issue, but on what they think is said in the bible about it. And in turn appearing in the media, influencing politicians about it, indeed running for political office themselves. Some countries, notably Iran, Saudi Arabia, and America, are now theocracies run by people who know nothing except what someone has told them an old book says.

Angry? You betcha. The modern world is difficult enough, will become more difficult in the future, without the drag on political life from people living in the past. Can’t laugh at these people any more, this is serious.

*By “humans” in what follows I sometimes mean “the whole human race” and sometimes “the humans who wrote the bits and pieces of old manuscript that got collected together and called ‘the bible’”, which is which will be obvious and not of much importance anyway.

Back to Methuselah

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by Economics, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Bit of serendipity other day. As I was planning this post I was taken to task by a right wing tweeter unhappy, for some reason, that I had repeated the obvious truism that conservatives are much dumber than progressives. Progressivism, in fact, has an intelligence bias. Anyway, left him to his own world after a while, and sharpened up my intentions for this post.

Morning of 6 June 1968 in Australia, and the news was filtering in, few details, that Robert Kennedy had been shot while campaigning in California for the nomination as Democratic candidate for President (in one of those lovely historical quirks to face off, as it would transpire, against Richard Nixon, just as his brother had done 8 years earlier). So there we were having morning coffee in the tearoom at the university feeling sombre about the news, when in bounced my American academic room mate happily singing the words “Bobby Kennedy’s a vegetable, Bobby Kennedy’s a vegetable”. So demonstrating that (1) even California girls can be conservative (2) that university students can be conservative and (3) that there was a strain of Kennedy family hatred running deep among many Americans in 1968.

I always liked Bobby Kennedy. Saw him, I suppose, as a chance to restart the JFK promise cut short by that bastard in Dallas. And even more so. RFK seemed brighter than his brother and in the 5 years since his loss had come a long way on civil rights and the war. But the right were having none of that, and another bastard shot him, and then it was back to the mediocrity of Humphrey versus Nixon, the old firm back in town.

Said some good things, RFK, in those few brief years. One of the best known was “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” This was a paraphrased (and improved) quote from GB Shaw Back to Methuselah “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” It’s one of those “two kinds of people in the world” dichotomies, and when I was thinking about the difference between conservatives and progressives it came back to me. Kennedy and Shaw are not quite right for this use for modern times, in fact have almost reversed in meaning.

Progressives look at the world, get the facts on how it is, and ask “Why is that the situation?”, “What do we do about that?”, “How do we solve that?” They live in a fact-based world where problems are identified, analysed, responded to in a real way. Conservatives have no interest in the actual world. One will say “I want to do that” and the other will say “Why not?” and that will settle the issue. Or to put it another way, conservatives have a rigid ideology to which they are determined to make the world conform. With violence if necessary. Or even if not necessary – to hell with it, good money to be made out of wars. They have no interest in looking around and finding out what the world is actually like, they know what it is like, exactly, none of that wishy washy progressive doubt sort of stuff. No need for any of that scientific research and analysis crap either. Just decision-making, that’s all that’s needed. If someone says can we clear this forest for development a conservative says “why not?” Conservatives can have a forest cleared while an ecologist is still putting on his work trousers. A factory owner asks “hey, is it really safe to keep pumping all this CO2 into the air?” A conservative says “why not? who’s ever going to notice?” A businessman says “Hey, why not cut my taxes even more?” A conservative says “why not indeed? Best if you paid no tax really. After all your wealth will trickle down to the undeserving poor eventually”. A billionaire says “Health care? For the poor? Why if you have to ask how much it is you can’t afford it.” A Libertarian says “Why not get rid of all regulation now?” A conservative says “D’Oh!”

And meanwhile the progressives are asking “Why is the planet warming? Why is the wealth gap increasing? Why are poor people still starving? Why are species rapidly going extinct? Why are buildings collapsing? Why are children still dying?” Trying to find out. Trying to do something about it.

Thing is, just between you and me, the answers to the Progressive’s questions are the results of the answers to the Conservative’s questions. Been the case since Methuselah’s time.

You know why.

Fiddling while Rome burns

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by Media, politics • Tags: , , ,

It’s one of those “what-ifs” of history. You know – what if the Japanese in World War 2 had modern fighter planes, what if the Romans had tanks, what if the Spanish Armada was composed of steamships. But another version involves communications. What if the internet, mobile phones, twitter and email, digital still and video cameras, had been available at different times in history?

I’m thinking it wouldn’t have been so important for the battles between more or less equal armies, but for the invasions and occupations of countries by superior forces. For two reasons, so that those being invaded could tell each other what the hell was going on instead of being overwhelmed unawares, and so they could tell rest of the world what was happening and arouse sympathy and help.

Picture the Romans entering Britain, Spaniards into Central America, British into Australia and India, Greeks into Middle East. Imagine what the French resistance could have done as the Germans occupied, what the people of south east Asia could have reported about the Japanese. Imagine indeed what the Jewish people, and the German resistance, could have revealed about conditions in Germany in the 1930s and in the war. The British in China, the Japanese in China, the Portugese and Dutch in Africa, the Russians in eastern Europe, the Vikings in Britain, the Turks in Austria, Genghis Khan everywhere. If all the countries invaded could have quickly communicated with each other (The Eora and Dharug for example letting others know outside Sydney Cove what these Redcoats and convicts were up to; letting the world know they were being invaded, shot, land taken, dying of smallpox) invasions would have been harder, occupations perhaps shorter and less brutal.

And the world’s tyrants would have had a more difficult time – Caligula and Bloody Mary, Hitler and Stalin, Egyptian and Aztec rulers, Chinese emperors, South American generals. All would have had problems keeping brutality going, maintaining their power, faced with a flood of information to the world via the internet.

And yet. We have those tools today. Brave people getting stories, photos, film out from Syria most recently. And every report is prefaced by disclaimers from mainstream media – this may not be true, can’t verify, it is said that, purports to show, apparently results from. Every piece of footage, photo, recording, secret interview, is prefaced by disclaimers so as to make it impossible to know the truth. So that viewers, listeners, treat all this material as rumours of no more credibility than any other rumours. And we have to be very careful about terminology like “invasion” “occupation” “freedom fighter” “rebel” “terrorist”, have to be careful not to offend dictators who are on our side or are good trading partners. Have to present news about such events as “he said-she said”.

Internet technology make a difference in the past? I doubt it. Video footage of Nero with box of matches setting fire to Rome? Couldn’t be verified.

Factory floored

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by Economics, Education • Tags: , , , ,

Had a meal in a cafe the other day in a big city not a million miles away. Very poor, almost inedible. These days I’m pleased when I find a good meal. Often the meals seem prepared with little care or attention, using frozen or preserved ingredients, precooked and then reheated in microwave, and so on.

So I prefer eating at home usually, but this is no longer the certainty it once was. Nothing to do with the cooking of course, he adds hastily, avoiding repercussions, but more to do with ingredients.

Don’t know if you have seen a television program called “Jimmy’s Food Factory”. The chap tries to recreate the processes by which food is converted from what occurs naturally on the farm to what you find packaged for sale in shops and supermarkets.

It is one of those programs that tell you far more than you wanted to know for your own peace of mind. He minces things up, steams them, reduces to grey sludge, adds chemicals for colour and taste, reconstitutes in new form, dries, freezes, fires out of cannon, packages, adds a misleading name (a “custard” biscuit for example having no custard of any kind), finished.

The result bears little resemblance to the original but is in a convenient shape and form that can be shipped readily, and will last for a thousand years on a shelf. There are “foods” that you can never look at the same way again after seeing this program – I was floored by a lot of it. If you haven’t seen it I’m afraid it’s not a case of what you don’t know won’t hurt you.

On top of that is the way that there is increasing misleading labelling, of the origin of foods from, say, China or South America, shipped to New Zealand and relabelled, or with labels here that confuse with misdirections involved in various permutations of “Australian made”. Before you know where you are, like watching a magician with hat and rabbit, you have little idea about where the food came from, how old it is, what additives it may have, and so on.

What can we do about it? Not much, probably, we are locked in to factory farming, factory food processing, mass transport over long distances, factory selling in the supermarkets. The people along the chain, after the stuff leaves the farm gate, all make more money the cheaper the food can be processed and the longer it can be sold for. We gain in the convenience of marching into a supermarket, at any time of day, any time of year, and reaching for a packet of something or other which is invariably there.

But having your stomach process factory food probably isn’t the best for you. Increasingly we try to grow some of our own foods, shop at farmer’s markets. Maybe if enough of us do that the stuff we eat won’t turn our stomachs quite so much.

Worth a try.

Give the order

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by Climate Change, Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

You all remember Old King Canute taking his throne down to the beach, right – “Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.”

Possibly true, possibly not. It was a thousand years ago, if it happened, and our media finds it impossible to recount accurately something that happened 1000 minutes ago. But if it wasn’t then it should have been. Should have been read out to every subsequent king and baron. Oh not the god nonsense of course, they did enough of that for themselves, but the idea that the most powerful person had no control over the natural world and its “laws”.

Certainly should be read out to Ms Gina Rinehart, richest woman in the universe, well, Australia anyway, and probably the one with the greatest hubris, now that Maggie Thatcher and Sarah Palin have left politics.

She was fairly private and low key until a couple of years ago. Then she emerged in the front of a crowd of well-dressed protesters, with professionally printed signs, bused in from a nearby office to stand at attention on astroturf. It was a very small crowd, but with the use of a camera carefully focussed just on the front row, managed to give the most inaccurate record of an event since US soldiers pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in a pretence it was a sign of popular support for the invasion.

But I digress. There was Gina (was she holding a sign? I forget) chanting with the others “Whaddawe want? No taxes for billionaires. Whendowe want it? Now”. No, I made that up a little bit, a rough translation but capturing the essence of the event.

Made so much noise that day and other days through the media they won the debate, tax essentially dropped, prime minister dumped from office partly as a result. Power, sure, but not much different to the power the very rich have been exerting in this egalitarian society for 200 years.

And then I read this and suddenly we were into much more sinister doings. Into the American world of the Koch Brothers, and PACs, corporations as people, and the Heritage Foundation.

So it has gone ahead. Last few days have seen Rinehart taking the major shareholding in Fairfax, Plimer appointed to her boards. And the IPA, apparently also supported by her financially has, over the last few years, become ubiquitous almost daily across all the media of the ABC. Some of the details about this are available here and here and here.

So we are reaching a situation where Murdoch controls 70% of the Australian commercial media, Rinehart in effect will control much of the rest, and the IPA is ensuring that the ABC takes a strongly right wing view of every issue and climate change is scarcely ever mentioned.

So expect over the next decades, that these powerful people will ensure the election of an ultra conservative Coalition government, the media will release only information it wants released and will tell you what to think about it, that no action witll be taken on climate change in any way, and environmental protection and regulation will be smashed. I can see no way of stopping this no matter how many of us blog away in our small corners of this brown land. Twenty billion dollars versus twenty million people in a democracy? No contest.

But then in ten years time I have a picture of this lonely woman sitting on a throne on a beach. Behind her a gaggle of shock jocks and climate change deniers and mining CEOs and conservative politicians. One of them is saying “Give the order, O great Queen, and it will obey”. She is holding out her hand to the sea and commanding “climate stop changing”, but then she gets drowned by the rising water levels and I can see her no more.