Apparently the Japanese tsunami is going to cost them 'as much as £145bn'. That's a lot of money. How will we ever find enough cash to help them out?
Oh wait. The UK found £20bn to bail out the banks, according to the Bank of England. The US handed over $100bn. The total cost to the UK economy in lost output is £7.4 trillion.
Funny how fast the banks got their (our) cash. Funny how slow it's going to be to help the Japanese. I'm going to phone my bank and ask them to send the money I lent them via the government to Japan.
Showing posts with label tsunami. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tsunami. Show all posts
Monday, 21 March 2011
Monday, 14 March 2011
Turning Japanese
I mentioned the other day my frustration with the way the Japanese tsunami is turning into horror-porn for the news networks. It's getting worse. Two of my favourite news programmes (Radio 4's Today and Channel 4 News) have flown out their 'top' anchors to report from Japan: James Naughtie and Jon Snow. I respect them both as broadcasting giants, but their presence in Japan says a lot more about the macho and hierarchical culture of their respective institutions than it does about the disaster.
More precisely, neither of these gentlemen speak Japanese. They can't do any research or story-chasing (neither can the BBC journalist moved hurriedly from North Korea to Japan). All they can do is rely on local talent and official statements made to the world's press in English. So all we're getting (at our expense, in the case of Naughtie) is the dubious pleasure of a familiar face/voice regurgitating facts and claims they haven't researched, in front of disaster footage.
Journalism 0, media 1.
Meanwhile, there's good news for the British economy. Saudi Arabia's dictatorship has sent troops to help the Bahraini dictatorship crush its oppressed protestors. The UK is one of SA's closest allies, and the Saudis have bought literally billions of pounds' worth of weaponry from the UK for their tiny armed forces. I always thought it was part of a little oil/weapons deal, but now those shiny guns are going to get some exercise at last. How proud our political leaders must be.
More precisely, neither of these gentlemen speak Japanese. They can't do any research or story-chasing (neither can the BBC journalist moved hurriedly from North Korea to Japan). All they can do is rely on local talent and official statements made to the world's press in English. So all we're getting (at our expense, in the case of Naughtie) is the dubious pleasure of a familiar face/voice regurgitating facts and claims they haven't researched, in front of disaster footage.
Journalism 0, media 1.
Meanwhile, there's good news for the British economy. Saudi Arabia's dictatorship has sent troops to help the Bahraini dictatorship crush its oppressed protestors. The UK is one of SA's closest allies, and the Saudis have bought literally billions of pounds' worth of weaponry from the UK for their tiny armed forces. I always thought it was part of a little oil/weapons deal, but now those shiny guns are going to get some exercise at last. How proud our political leaders must be.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's…
SUPERMOON!
Yes, if you really want the experience of being battered to death by stupidity and vulture-like revelling in mass deaths, then the Daily Mail is the newspaper for you.
They're asking (and this is an 'exclusive' in the sense that not even the Daily Star is dumb enough to steal this story - they've gone for the sober 'Hot! Megaquake Strikes Japan'):
As you're no doubt aware, the answer to any headline with an ? at the end in this or any other newspaper is 'no'.
This is a particularly good effort though. The use of 'latest' implies that many other disasters (unspecified in the article beyond a vague reference to the Christchurch earthquake which has got 'others on the Internet') definitely have been caused by the 'supermoon', whose '' are a neat little distancing effect. So 'latest' = definitely and '' = may not exist.
Wonderfully, the identity of these scientists is given: 'astrologers'. Do you not think that an astronomer might be the person to ask about an easily observable heavenly body? Or is that some kind of science fascism?
What they've done is the classic 'caveat in paragraph 23' trick: the (non-)truth of the story is several paragraphs lower, so that they can get the attention while claiming accuracy.
Why actual scientists answer the phone to the Hate Mail is completely beyond me - it just lends them credibility.
That's some quality journalism. No wonder it's credited to 'Daily Mail reporter' rather than a someone with a reputation to uphold. Either that or they've just cut-and-pasted from some weirdo's press release.
Just to be clear:
there is no 'supermoon', but sometimes the moon moves a bit closer. The distance moves regularly between 363,000km and 405,000km. This has a minor effect on the tides. It doesn't cause earthquakes or tsunamis. Or any other kind of 'disaster'.
If your newspaper is reduced to splashing the weird ramblings of people on 'the Internet' as though it's a) news and b) science, using a massive natural disaster including widespread loss of life, then you are a sorry fucking excuse for a publication and deserve to be publicly pilloried. Some people on 'the Internet' think that homeopathy cures cancer, Jesus was the son of God, creationism's a fake, Elvis is alive and the Jews control the world economy. Don't encourage them.
This just in:
PS. Here's a little something for the ladeez.
Yes, if you really want the experience of being battered to death by stupidity and vulture-like revelling in mass deaths, then the Daily Mail is the newspaper for you.
They're asking (and this is an 'exclusive' in the sense that not even the Daily Star is dumb enough to steal this story - they've gone for the sober 'Hot! Megaquake Strikes Japan'):
IS THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE THE LATEST DISASTER TO HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY A 'SUPERMOON'?
As you're no doubt aware, the answer to any headline with an ? at the end in this or any other newspaper is 'no'.
This is a particularly good effort though. The use of 'latest' implies that many other disasters (unspecified in the article beyond a vague reference to the Christchurch earthquake which has got 'others on the Internet') definitely have been caused by the 'supermoon', whose '' are a neat little distancing effect. So 'latest' = definitely and '' = may not exist.
Wonderfully, the identity of these scientists is given: 'astrologers'. Do you not think that an astronomer might be the person to ask about an easily observable heavenly body? Or is that some kind of science fascism?
What they've done is the classic 'caveat in paragraph 23' trick: the (non-)truth of the story is several paragraphs lower, so that they can get the attention while claiming accuracy.
'Supermoons have a historical association with strong storms, very high tides, extreme tides and also earthquakes,' he said.
However, scientists dismiss this as utter nonsense and that although it makes a good photo opportunity for astronomers it has no impact on Earth.
Dr David Harland, space historian and author, said: 'It's possible that the moon may be a kilometre or two closer to Earth than normal at a perigee, but it's an utterly insignificant event.'
Professor George Helffrich, a seismologist at the University of Bristol was equally dismissive.
'Complete nonsense. The moon has no significant effect on earthquake triggering.
'If the moon triggers "big" earthquakes, it would trigger the many of millions of times more "small" earthquakes that happen daily. There is no time dependence of those; hence no moon effect.'
Why actual scientists answer the phone to the Hate Mail is completely beyond me - it just lends them credibility.
That's some quality journalism. No wonder it's credited to 'Daily Mail reporter' rather than a someone with a reputation to uphold. Either that or they've just cut-and-pasted from some weirdo's press release.
Just to be clear:
there is no 'supermoon', but sometimes the moon moves a bit closer. The distance moves regularly between 363,000km and 405,000km. This has a minor effect on the tides. It doesn't cause earthquakes or tsunamis. Or any other kind of 'disaster'.
If your newspaper is reduced to splashing the weird ramblings of people on 'the Internet' as though it's a) news and b) science, using a massive natural disaster including widespread loss of life, then you are a sorry fucking excuse for a publication and deserve to be publicly pilloried. Some people on 'the Internet' think that homeopathy cures cancer, Jesus was the son of God, creationism's a fake, Elvis is alive and the Jews control the world economy. Don't encourage them.
This just in:
Astronomers today predicted that a mysterious dense body known only as the Daily Mail will cause chaos, confusion, and mass outbreaks of hysterical dumbness tomorrow, as the print edition is thought to appear in shops across the country. Although there's no scientific evidence, some people on the Internet posit that reading a newspaper which consistently supported Hitler and Mosley will give you cancer.
Nostradamus was unavailable for comment but issued this statement: 'I told you this would happen. In the bit about goats building pyramids'.
PS. Here's a little something for the ladeez.
A wave of sympathy
Listening to the news about the Japanese/Pacific tsumani reminded me of a question we posed to our Media Ethics class this year. We asked them to consider whether watching suffering entailed responsibility, and how a viewer could possibly respond.
The mediated aspect of disaster is the tricky bit. I listened to Radio 4's Today programme this morning, and it was obvious that something big was unfolding. Sometimes the presenters' voices would wobble as they contemplated the mass destruction and death to come. I was comforted by this: I don't think cold objectivity is possible or desirable.
At other points though, at least one of the presenters sounded excited by the drama: disasters make great broadcasting. People phone in with reports, Twitter feeds can be quoted. In the editorial room, computer graphics are being deployed to give us a sense of mastery through knowledge. Getting there first, or getting the most dramatic accounts become part of the excitement. The event becomes a commodity. BBC competes with ITV, rolling news channels are relieved that Accrington Stanley's reserve goalkeeper's wobbly knee is no longer the lead item, and the multiple moments of horror become a kind of pornographic entertainment.
Distanced by screen and footage and graphics and newsreaders and journalists, we no longer imagine the final terrifying seconds of an individual's life because empathy is blunted by mediation. Instead we wonder at the 'power of nature' or the heroic efforts of the rescue teams. We're disconnected from the people in the eye of the storm, which is terribly sad, but having pictures of their suffering won't reconnect us - it just gives us the illusion of immediacy and witness. If you need pictures to make you care, you're a damaged human being.
I was rather annoyed by the coverage of the New Zealand quake recently: much more heartfelt than coverage of the disasters befalling non-English speakers and non-white people, but it was flawed too in that the concentration on sheer scale failed to convey the true horror: those scared individuals facing a terrifying end.
What am I saying? Not sure. That we need empathy in journalism without sentimentality, but also that the media's obsession with speed and technology haven't brought us closer to events but distanced us from them. Baudrillard's concept of hyper-reality is right: TV gives us the illusion of involvement and reality while actually creating a whole new set of events with very little relationship to facts (if there are any) on the ground. What we need is more silence, more admissions of inadequacy and ignorance from our media, rather than the loud insistence on omniscience.
The mediated aspect of disaster is the tricky bit. I listened to Radio 4's Today programme this morning, and it was obvious that something big was unfolding. Sometimes the presenters' voices would wobble as they contemplated the mass destruction and death to come. I was comforted by this: I don't think cold objectivity is possible or desirable.
At other points though, at least one of the presenters sounded excited by the drama: disasters make great broadcasting. People phone in with reports, Twitter feeds can be quoted. In the editorial room, computer graphics are being deployed to give us a sense of mastery through knowledge. Getting there first, or getting the most dramatic accounts become part of the excitement. The event becomes a commodity. BBC competes with ITV, rolling news channels are relieved that Accrington Stanley's reserve goalkeeper's wobbly knee is no longer the lead item, and the multiple moments of horror become a kind of pornographic entertainment.
Distanced by screen and footage and graphics and newsreaders and journalists, we no longer imagine the final terrifying seconds of an individual's life because empathy is blunted by mediation. Instead we wonder at the 'power of nature' or the heroic efforts of the rescue teams. We're disconnected from the people in the eye of the storm, which is terribly sad, but having pictures of their suffering won't reconnect us - it just gives us the illusion of immediacy and witness. If you need pictures to make you care, you're a damaged human being.
I was rather annoyed by the coverage of the New Zealand quake recently: much more heartfelt than coverage of the disasters befalling non-English speakers and non-white people, but it was flawed too in that the concentration on sheer scale failed to convey the true horror: those scared individuals facing a terrifying end.
What am I saying? Not sure. That we need empathy in journalism without sentimentality, but also that the media's obsession with speed and technology haven't brought us closer to events but distanced us from them. Baudrillard's concept of hyper-reality is right: TV gives us the illusion of involvement and reality while actually creating a whole new set of events with very little relationship to facts (if there are any) on the ground. What we need is more silence, more admissions of inadequacy and ignorance from our media, rather than the loud insistence on omniscience.
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