Cars are the problem not bikes
Miranda Devine published an
incendiary opinion piece attacking cyclists in the
Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday. It was in response to an incident involving a cyclist riding a busway. In that incident the cyclist may have been in the wrong, but she used it as a starting to point to launch an all out war of words on cyclists.
Devine has followed up with a
slightly more balanced piece today. However, she stills fails to recognise that the root of traffic problems is too many cars. Conflict between cyclists and car drivers arises because of this point.
It seems that rants against cyclists in the Australian media are not uncommon. Last month it was comedian Magda Szubanski who
unleashed a verbal tirade against cyclists (link to news article with video) on the TV program
Good News Week. She later apologised for what she said. However, the fact that she openly advocated violence against cyclists was absolutely unacceptable. Imagine if homosexuals or Aborigines had been the target of her rant rather than cyclists. It would have certainly meant the end of her career.
Unfortunately there are some cyclists out there who flout road rules and act aggressively. However, there are many more car drivers that also behave similarly. The difference is cars can easily kill, and cyclists are especially vulnerable.
Governments need to not only invest in infrastructure that makes the road safer for cyclists. They need to develop policies that actively reduce the number of cars on the road. Car drivers can also take responsibility by reducing their car use and using public transport, walking or getting on a bike. If more car drivers rode bikes perhaps there would be greater sympathy for the difficult road conditions cyclists face rather than blame shifting, hostility and aggression.
Labels: cycling, media
The power of Twitter
While a large percentage of tweets on Twitter might be inconsequential garbage, the power of Twitter should not be underestimated.
The tweet, shown in a screenshot above, showed that in the age of the internet social media has the power to challenge the clout of corporations.
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's tweet links to
an article from
The Guardian, reporting that the paper had been gagged from reporting parliament. Twitterers sought out the reasons for the gag, and discovered that it was related to Trafigura, a company involved in dumping toxic waste in Africa. They then disseminated the relevant information online effectively nullifying the impact of the gag order. Rusbridger has a summary of what happened
here.
Update: Also reported in the
New York Times:
Twitter and a Newspaper Untie a Gag Order.
Labels: media
China knows while Australia in the dark
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (L) meets with Li Changchun, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in Canberra, capital of Australia, March 21, 2009. (Xinhua/Liu Jiansheng)On Saturday 21 March 2009 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had lunch with Li Changchun, a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, at The Lodge in Canberra. Chinese news agency Xinhua reported this within a few hours with
a report in English and photos on their website.
The news was not broken in Australia until Tuesday 24 March when it was
reported in The Australian.
This raises some important questions about why preferential access was given to the Chinese media while Australian media were not even informed of the meeting. One might also ask why the Australian media remained unaware of the meeting for so long when it was reported in English by the media in China and easily available via the internet.
Labels: media
Tibet in the media
The Tibet issue gets quite a lot of media attention. However, the quality of a lot of what is written is not great. News from the Chinese media is nothing more than propaganda and it often gets re-reported by the major news agencies. What is written in the media outside China does a good job of representing the viewpoints of both sides but lacks nuance. It tends to be the Tibetan Government in Exile versus the Xinhua News Agency. There is no appreciation of the wider range of viewpoints that exist.
Shakya Tsering, a leading Tibetan historian and author of
Dragon in the Lands of Snows, has an excellent article in the
Far Eastern Economic Review titled
The Gulf Between Tibet and Its Exiles. In it he highlights the difference in outlook between the Tibetans in exile and the Tibetans in the PRC. The article discusses many of the complexities of Tibetan politics that are generally ignored.
The article was written in response to two earlier articles. One was by William Engdahl in Global Research which was later retracted and is no longer online. The other was by Ching Cheong repeating Engdahl's argument.
Another article on a similar theme was published in the Asia Times Online in March 2008.
Tibet, the 'great game' and the CIA by Richard Bennett talks about Tibet's connections with the CIA. Although some people some people are surprised by the historical connections between the Tibetans and the CIA during the Cold War it is hardly a secret. It is the subject of the book
The CIA's Secret War in Tibet and the documentary
The Shadow Circus.
While I am sure that various foreign intelligence agencies (especially those of India and the US) maintain connections with various Tibetan groups I think it is a little naive to connect the covert guerilla war in the 1960s to the present outbreak of protests in Tibet.
What journalists should be spending more time doing though is investigating and understanding the politics of the Tibetans in exile. Some of them might be quite surprised to learn that not all Tibetans regard His Holiness the Dalai Lama with uncritical devotion. There are a wide range of viewpoints in the Tibetan diaspora.
Another topic that really needs thorough investigation is the Dorje Shugden sect who are protesting against the Dalai Lama claiming he is opressing their religious freedom. This group is closely linked with the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT) led by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso. There is a very long Wikipedia article titled the
Dorje Shugden controversy which covers a lot of the details.
Some suspect the Chinese of being an invisible hand behind the Dorje Shugden controversy using it to discredit the Dalai Lama. However, as far as I know thre is no credible evidence to prove this. It could also be the result of a split within the Tibetan in exile community. This would not be a first as there has already been the
Karmapa controversy. It is also possible that this is just the workings of a religious sect or cult that is fanatical about its beliefs. Whatever the case might be it is something that needs more investigation and analysis in the media.
Labels: media, Tibet
Cadel Evans says Free Tibet
photo from The AgeCadel Evans wore a Free Tibet t-shirt during the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day classic on 27 April. But according to the IOC he won't be wearing the same t-shirt when he competes in the road race at the Beijing Olympics. The Age
reports:
AN AUSTRALIAN Olympic hopeful, the star cyclist Cadel Evans, may come under greater scrutiny from Chinese and Games authorities in Beijing after wearing a "Free Tibet" T-shirt during a race in Belgium.
The International Olympic Committee yesterday toughened the interpretation of its Olympic Charter, adding to the rule that no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted at any Olympic site, venue or other area.
It has said such propaganda can include "the conduct of participants … including but not limited to their look, external appearance, clothing, gestures and written or oral statements".
I should also note Cadel Evans finished seventh overall in the classic which was won by Alejandro Valverde. (
Full results at www.cyclingnews.com). Evans is one of the favorites for the Tour de France and the Olympic road race in Beijing. asdf
Labels: cycling, media
"Balanced" reporting is biased
I often think society is overly obsessed with bias in the media. Or perhaps to put it in another way it rails at one kind of bias and ignores another.
First, there can really be no such thing as an entirely objective reporting, or if there was it would be too bland and uninformative. Second, different weight needs to be given to different opinions. The same amount of words or time doesn't need to be given to opposing views if they have little credibility or merit.
Sharon Beder wrote a great opinion piece about this in
The Age yesterday.
The officious policing of impartiality and balance will mean ensuring that statements by those challenging the establishment (government or business) are balanced with statements by those whom they are criticising, though not necessarily the other way round.
Too much emphasis on objectivity in news and current affairs can lead journalists to leave out interpretations and analysis, which might be construed as personal views, and to play it safe by reporting events without explaining their meaning and keeping stories light and superficial so as not to offend anyone.
Journalists who accurately report what their sources say, can effectively remove responsibility for their stories onto the people they interview and quote. The ideal of objectivity therefore encourages uncritical reporting of official statements and those of authority figures. In this way, the biases of individual journalists are avoided but institutional biases are reinforced.
The enforcement of impartiality tends to give powerful industry spokespeople guaranteed access to the media, no matter how flimsy their argument or how transparently self-interested. No such access is guaranteed to critics.
No where is this more evident than in reporting on climate change. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus (not to mention clearly visible evidence) that climate change is happening, media reports often include the opinions of pseudo-scientific experts who disagree that climate change is real. Often these experts are funded by fossil fuel companies or other groups with vested interests.
Beder writes,
In their attempts to be balanced on a scientific story, journalists may use any opposing view even when it has little scientific credibility in the wider scientific community. This can be very misleading. In the case of global warming, the fossil fuel industry has taken advantage of this convention by funding a handful of dissidents and demanding that they are given equal media coverage despite their poor standing in the scientific community.
This strategy of exaggerating the uncertainties and confusing the public has ensured that governments such as the Howard Government have been able to avoid doing anything to prevent global warming, despite the overwhelming evidence that significant global warming is likely without government intervention.
It is only recently, after many precious years have been lost, that the most intransigent governments have been forced to admit that action must be taken to avoid global warming. Some ask why this has not occurred earlier. Clearly part of the problem has been the ability of vested interests to manipulate the media by holding up the rod of balance and impartiality.
There has been a noticeable shift in media reporting on climate change in the past year or so. It may be decades too late, but hopefully those who dispute climate change will soon belong in the same category as creation scientists or flat earthers. Then we can start working to solve this problem and not just argue about it.
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Sharon BederLabels: climate change, media
