The Wondering Mind

I just had the misfortune of reading an article on Car’s website about an apparent proposal for reducing speed limits in the UK. This is one of the sadder examples of a rabid advocate and partisan trying to disguise their writing as “reporting” for unsuspecting readers. Somthing we see far too frequently in what passes for public discourse today. So as a long time reader of the magazine, I’m going to dissect why this piece should have been ripped up by the editor.

First of all, the title: “Growing opposition to UK 50mph speed limit plan.” If you actually read the consultation paper here, it actually recommends an accelerated review of speed limits on British roads, on the premise that the limit on some roads might then be reduced as a result of reclassification of some types of roads. So right at the start, the “reporter” actually gets the facts wrong.

Then he claims that opposition to these (fictional) plans “is gathering momentum.” How can we tell? There is a petition with 34,000 signatures opposing the plans. To put that in perspective, according to the CIA World Factbook, the estimated population for the UK in July 2009 is over 61 million. That means that the people who signed this petition, if all are genuine, represent approximately 0.05% of the population. Or to put it another way, Old Trafford, the stadium for Manchester United, will seat over twice that many people in a sold-out match. Wow! What a momentum!

The reporter then claims these plans are being “steamrollered through” and are really just “a revenue raising scam.” And the basis for these claims? I have no idea, since there is no evidence provided. I guess we’re supposed to just take the reporter’s word for it, what with him having gotten everything else right so far.

But finally, we get some more support for this reporter’s bias.

A recent CAR Online poll showed a similar dissatisfaction among our regulars. An overwhelming 62% of you thought the 60mph limit should remain in force on rural roads, 31% said the limit should be raised and only 7% backed the Government’s plan.

This is, obviously, a voluntary poll among people who read a magazine about fast cars. To expect a different result than the one presented would be like polling the NRA on gun control. Would you expect too many NRA members to say guns should be banned?

In fact, as a voluntary poll, as in one which you volunteer to participate in, it is likely to attract participants who hold particularly extreme views, as they are more likely to be riled up enough to spend time responding to a poll which actually impacts nothing.

Our hapless reporter then appeals to the Association of British Drivers. I refer you to my previous comparison to the NRA. This is clearly a group of sad and crazy fanatics who people avoid at parties. If you want to evaluate the bona fides of this organisation, you can check out their website. There, among other things, they cling to the fiction that global warming is real. Even many American Republican politicians don’t claim to believe this rubbish any more.

And yet, Brian Gregory, the “association’s” chairman appeals to scientific principles.

On higher quality roads, the speed limit should even be raised. They need to use scientific principles. Speed limits should be based on the 85th percentile [between the speeds where 80 to 90% of road users drive]. On the motorway, many people drive at 85 to 90mph, so 85mph would be a safe speed limit.

He even appeals to economic consequences.

Each mph you slow the average speed down by costs the economy £800 million to £1 billion each year.

I haven’t bothered to test this man’s economic claims. I stopped after checking out the association’s webpage on the “scientific principle” of the “85th percentile.” I won’t explain here what’s wrong with this quasi-scientific sounding nonsense, but anyone who has any training in any science (natural or social) or statistics will immediately recognise that Brian Gregory lacks any such training or understanding.

I’m really sick and tired of lazy, stupid, and partisan hacks pretending to journalism and laying on a screed. Either write an editorial or report the news; don’t conflate the two. Which is not to say that there are not bad policy ideas which should be exposed as such. But my experience in such cases has been that laying out an honest, fair, and thorough analysis and reporting of facts will do more to convince an intelligent person than an obviously biased manifesto.

As it stands, all this article does is to convince me that the reporter is a sad fanatic, and not a very bright one at that. And the fact that he is clearly riled up about this position paper is in no way a mark against it. If anything, you can’t help suspecting that it’s got to have something to recommend it if the crazies are against it.

It’s typical to hear people bemoaning the dropping standards in broadcast media the world over. Whether you agree with such sentiments is really a matter of opinion, depending more, I suspect, on your tastes than fact.

For the British, and Anglophiles, the supposed drop in standards at the BBC has probably been a hot topic ever since the beloved corporation started broadcasting. With what seems like an endless pursuit of naked commercialisation of just about everything in Britain these days, such lamentations carry a little more weight than they perhaps did before, especially when they come from such respectable, and respected, sources like John Simpson.

Personally, I think their standard of journalism is simply not as exacting as they used to be. I seem to remember them being much more challenging. Much closer to some of the interviews on ‘Newsnight’ in tone and difficulty (although I do think Jeremy Paxman is an arrogant prig).

While that may be due to my memories playing tricks on me, I am apparently not that far off worrying about the standards of reporting at least. Just read this sorry excuse for a report. The most glaring errors are the typographical errors reporting the various band names, probably due to the reporter’s lack of familiarity with the said bands. (For the record, it is “Vampire Weekend”, “Gym Class Heroes”, and “Death Cab for Cutie”, not “Vampire weekend”, Gymclass Heroes”, or “Death Cab For a Cutie”.)

What may not be so jarring, but I think just as obvious, is that this reporter seems to be confusing celebrity endorsements with celebrity efforts to persuade people to vote. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THINGS!

For the reporter’s benefit, I would like to point out that encouraging people to vote involves the celebrity telling people they should vote. That’s it. Celebrity endorsement is the celebrity telling people why they think the public should vote for a particular candidate.

This is important because the report doesn’t make much sense unless you make that distinction clear. While you may not agree with a particular celebrity endorsement, it may still persuade the audience to vote (perhaps for the opposition).

Once you recognise the distinction, it is not clear if there is a difference in conclusion of the two studies mentioned, as they may be talking about two different things. It also helps decypher the following comment.

Twenty-one-year old Michael Hangtan isn’t so sure.

“I think celebrities getting involved is kinda absurd… I think I’m gonna take it with a grain of salt,” he says.

Why would Hangtan think celebrities telling you to vote is “ridiculous” and should be taken “with a grain of salt”? That makes no sense. But if he is talking about celebrity endorsements, then that statement makes much more sense.

Aren’t news organisations supposed to have copy readers and editors, or something?

As a reporting piece, this is a pretty good article about the political divide in America today. But it leaves a lot of questions to be answered, mainly because it doesn’t give us enough information.

“Why do they support him?” she asked. “What do they say?” I mentioned economy, Iraq and health care as the main three things that keep coming up. She had informed responses as to why Obama would be bad on all of them. But her question itself was telling.

It is telling, but it would be even more informative if we were told what her “informed responses” were. Informed how? They are clearly not the reasons why people support Obama on those issues, so are they points other people are missing, or are Obama supporters just wrong?

What passes for “fair” journalism and reporting these days seems to be to ask people questions and just to report what was said without challenging the response. What passes for challenging people is to attack them with propaganda from their opponents, but there is no real probing.

For example, on the issue of guns, why not ask why Mr. Garst feels the need to have firearms to protect himself? That seems like an irrational fear considering the circumstances. Gun advocates are also usually obsessed only with the need to own guns to protect themselves, as opposed to supporting measures which may lessen the need for anyone to protect themselves. This is in the same vein of conservatives who oppose abortion based on the sanctity of life, but won’t give a dime to improve the quality of life of those born to less fortunate families.

Why not challenge Mr. Garst on the apparent selfishness of a man clearly able to provide more than he and his family needs, but not wanting to share this largess with others? Because he is strong now, he feels no charity towards others less able and less fortunate?

Well-read and well-travelled Carey doesn’t suit the liberal stereotype of a gun nut, let alone a redneck. His adherence to rugged individualism suits him quite well because he is quite a rugged individual. He built his own barn, clears his own land (he owns a few acres) and is in the process of making a lake. He works hard and seems proud of the fact that he only takes one week vacation a year.

His philosophy appears to be “I’m alright, Jack, so tough on anyone else.”

“Well-read and well travelled” he may be, but what does that mean really? What has he read and where has he gone that inspires such selfishness? To remain a man who lives in such splendid isolation, apparently  untouched by any sense of common humanity in what he has read and where he has been and seen, is more a mark of a truly ignorant and stupid person. You could at least argue that a “redneck” is that way because they have not been exposed to a greater, wider world.

Good reporting isn’t to just report any old rubbish people spout or believe in. It does involve questioning that rubbish without necessarily attacking the people who hold the views, but questioning the right or wrong of the stance.

That’s the headline I expect to read in any and every respectable newspaper in the U.S., if the press were actually doing their job any more.

I just sat through watching some old guy, who I can only imagine has gone senile, presenting what he thought was some touching hommage to the “Olympic spirit”, while Bob Costas sat there with that perennial smug grin on his face. What a load of bollocks.

This guy (not going to call him a “reporter”) presented a piece about how the Olympics represented peace and harmony throughout history, which ironically spent most of the opening part of the film on scenes of the German Olympic team during the Berlin games opening ceremony, goose-stepping into the stadium and presenting the Nazi salute to Hitler.

Unless that was the work of some subversive editor, it illustrated the complete selling out long ago of any Olympic ideals the event may have had at one point and exposed the naked hypocrisy and condescension of NBC in presenting something so obsequious to the games and to China.

For those who actually watched this travesty of reporting, the Russian and Georgian pistol shooters, whose actions are indeed admirable, have been friends for years, as they started competing together while Georgia and Russia were still part of the U.S.S.R. Granted, in this day and age when neighbours turn on neighbour and friends denounce each other at times of conflict, that these women refused to abandon their friendship is heart warming. But there’s no reason to think that the Olympics had any positive role to play here.

In the same BBC report of this scene, we get two examples of other members of the Olympics squads, from both countries, engaging in bellicose rhetoric. And today we hear reports of the spat between the Russian and Georgian teams in women’s beach volleyball.

The one thing that Bob Costas and friend did point out, in a clearly snide remark (I have no idea why these men were so miffed about it), is that the Georgian team do appear to have obtained Georgian passports primarily to compete in the games. And in what must count as the most crass comment to be uttered by anyone at an Olympic game, one of the Russian players taunted the winning Georgian team by saying,

“If they are Georgian they would certainly have been influenced (by world events), but certainly they are not.”

Forget good sportsmanship. How about not being possibly the worst sore loser in history?

No doubt NBC is anxious to get their pound of flesh from having bought the rights to the games and do not want the coverage spoiled with negative stories. GE, the parent company of NBC, probably doesn’t want to broadcast overly negative coverage of the games so that they don’t complicate or jeopardise any existing and future business in China. It helps to have in their employ Costas and friend, who are clearly prostitutes in all but name. Either that or they are both high on drugs to believe the manure they’re shoveling.

But the way to keep the coverage relevant and worth watching isn’t to ignore inconvenient truths. No one will be convinced by such transparent and ham-fisted propaganda for commercial interests. People will have noticed the ridiculous attempt to play down the pollution before the major outdoor endurance events, even as we see the smog on television almost everyday. There are reports of human rights (in particular, rights which China specifically promised to the IOC would be respected, in order to win the games) being oppressed during the games if people look for them.

So people won’t fall for this kind of nonsense from NBC or China, right? Well, unless the people are all too busy doping too.

P.S. – The Olympic truce that Costas and friend talk about, and other “reporters” keep trotting out faithfully from the IOC propaganda packets, refers to the ancient Greek games, when the participating Greek nations would observe a truce. That was actually due to the fact that the Olympic games were a sacred religious event as well as a sporting one, primarily honouring Zeus.

For many, if not most, Greeks of various nations, to engage in war during that time would have been sacrilege. It had nothing to do with any desire for peace. Greeks, especially Spartans, were famous for actually refusing to engage in battle during religious periods, only to resume fighting when the festivals were over.