Media – Page 34 – Open Minds!

Gasp! Asthma on the rise – and we made it all possible

Gasp!

This morning, I woke up at 4.30 in the morning struggling to breathe. It’s another attack of asthma.

My lungs don’t know – and won’t care – that yesterday, 1 May, was World Asthma Day. All my long-suffering lungs need is some fresh air.

But in the increasingly polluted — and right now, incredibly humid — Greater Colombo, I’m not likely to find it any time soon.

World Asthma Day is designed to increase awareness of asthma as a global health problem. Those who live with Asthma, and suffer on a daily or weekly basis, know what it’s all about.

I’m among the lucker ones. My asthma is well under control most of the time, but an inhalor is never far away. In fact, asthma is my personal indicator of how clean or polluted the air is in places I visit on my frequent travels.

I’ve had bad attacks in Beijing and Kathmandu. No surprises there. But at least in the latter city, which I’ll be revisiting soon, my lungs feel that the air quality has been getting better.

So there is some good news, even if we have to look hard and dig deep for it. That’s part of the job for us journalists — and in this instance, I readily declare my self interest: I want to breathe more easily!

Last year, TVE Asia Pacific conducted a regional media training workshop on covering air quality issues in Asia. That was part of the Better Air Quality 2006 event, a large gathering of everyone concerned with cleaner air issues. It was held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in mid December 2006. Read TVE Asia Pacific website coverage of BAQ 2006 and the media training workshop.

Political, scientific and industry leaders made lofty statements about the value of clean air. Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesia’s environment minister, said clean air was more important for Asians than even rice, the staple food for most Asians.

Inspired by the week-long event, I wrote an op ed essay that month titled ‘Grappling with Asia’s Tsunami of the Air’. It has appeared online at several websites.

Images courtesy TVE Asia Pacific

In that essay, I argued:

In the wake of the Asian Tsunami, some development and humanitarian groups used the phrase ‘silent tsunami’ to describe slowly unfolding emergencies that rarely attract much media coverage or global compassion. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made frequent, passionate references to the ‘daily tsunami of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental degradation.’

It’s easy to call Asia’s air pollution induced sickness and death another silent tsunami. Except that there is nothing silent about it: the lung-corroding, heart-threatening, cancer-causing and blood-poisoning pollutants are released with a thunderous roar from the region’s cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles and other motorised vehicles. Anyone who has stood in a busy intersection in an Asian megacity knows exactly what I mean.

For the want of a phrase, we might call this Asia’s ‘tsunami of the air’.

And this tsunami is very much of our own making — let’s acknowledge that we are all part of the problem, some more than others. It makes us culpable for what India’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) once termed ‘slow murder’ by dirty air.

Read the full essay on One World South Asia

TVEAP News: Rising Asia chokes, but continues its quest for cleaner air

Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities

Images courtesy TVE Asia Pacific

Breaking News from Onion News Network: They know it all!

Some journalists and media organisations never allow the truth to get in the way of a good story.

Now, as broadcast television trades more substance for style, on-screen graphics is everything. Unless a news story is supported with gimmicky, flashy graphics, the networks seem to think, it won’t be news anymore.

This ONION TV News Parody shows how getting the graphics right is more important to TV networks than getting the meaning right. The story keeps shifting but the anchor remains authoritative — without knowing what the news is all about.

Breaking News: Something Happening In Haiti

According to their self introduction: The Onion News Network (ONN) has set the standard for globe-encompassing 24-hour television news since it was founded in December, 1892. The network boasts channels in 171 languages and can be viewed in 4.2 billion households in 811 countries. Now get the only news you need on the web and from our esteemed media partners.

Onion News Network Promo

Earlier post: Jib-Jab Video: What we call the news

Thank you, Brundtland. Now for the unfinished business…

On 2 April 2007, I posted excerpts from a speech I made in Hyderabad, India, on the worldwide influence of Our Common Future, the final report of the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development that came out 20 years ago this month.

I have now expanded on that theme in an op ed essay titled ‘Children of Brundtland coming of age’.

It has just been published by Green Accord, an Italian non-profit group that every year organises a gathering of leading environmental experts and journalists. The GreenAccord Forum on Media and Nature, held in an Italian city every Fall, is now the largest, regular gathering of its kind. I have been a participant or speaker at three past editions.

GreenAccord logo

Here are excerpts from my essay:

Brundtland did not invent the concept or term -– various versions had been around since the first UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, 1972). But it was Our Common Future that took these mainly academic and inter-governmental discussions to a mass audience.

In doing so, it nudged the environmental movement to move up from simple pollution prevention, tree-hugging and whale-saving action to a much broader developmental agenda. Issues such as poverty, international trade, peace and security were integrated into one framework.

And, equally importantly, the report inspired a whole generation of young journalists, educators and activists worldwide. I was one of them: in that sense, we are all Children of Brundtland.

By happy coincidence, the report came out during my first year in science journalism, and significantly altered my outlook and priorities. My early fascination with mega-science topics such as space travel, genetic engineering and nuclear power gave way to an interest in issues of science for human survival and development. I haven’t looked back.

Some environmental journalists at GreenAccord Forum in Nov 2006

I then go on to question the continuing relevance of environmental journalism, and suggest that this kind of labelling has, inadvertently, ghettoised the media coverage of sustainable development issues.

I argue that we urgently need simple good journalism that covers sustainable development as an integral part of the mainstream of human affairs.

“We can’t engage in shoddy journalism in the name of saving endangered species or ecosystems. There is no substitute for plain good journalism.”

Photos courtesy: Zilia Castrillon

Read my full essay here

TVE Asia Pacific website news item on the last GreenAccord Forum in October 2006

Can journalists save the planet?

Earth’s city lights at night: this is one of my favourite images. Without a single word, it says so much about resource and energy use disparities on our planet.

It also reminds us of the biggest challenge we face: to better manage our affairs so that life — and lights — are not snuffed out.

“The Earth is one, but the world is not.”

These perceptive words opened the final report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), published 20 years ago this month.

Titled Our Common Future, it was the outcome of over 900 days of worldwide consultations and deliberations by experts, activists, government officials, industrialists and a cross section of ordinary people from all walks of life.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, that report made a deep impression on myself just when I was getting started in journalism.

Two decades on, there’s much unfinished business. In an editorial just published by the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net), I take a closer look at the role of journalists in pursuit of that elusive goal of sustainable development.

Here’s a short excerpt:

But environmental journalists can, at best, only weave part of the multi-faceted tapestry of sustainable development. Grasping the bigger picture, and communicating it well, requires the active participation of the entire media industry — from reporters, producers and feature writers to editors, managers and media owners.

Climate change — rapidly emerging as today’s charismatic mega-issue — could provide the means for unifying media and communication industries for this purpose.

Already, there is recognition of climate change’s far-reaching impacts. Echoing the United Kingdom’s Stern Review on the economics of climate change, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is pushing for climate change to be ‘rebranded’ as a development, rather than an environmental, problem.

In this scenario, we urgently need more good journalism that covers sustainable development as an integral part of mainstream human affairs.

Read the full editorial on SciDev.Net

Note:
The composite image of Earth at night was created by NASA with data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS). Originally designed to view clouds by moonlight, the OLS is also used to map the locations of permanent lights on the Earth’s surface.

Banned in the USA, Al Jazeera now online at YouTube

“The world’s first English language news channel to have its headquarters in the Middle East; covering the world, bridging cultures and setting the news agenda.”

That’s the marketing line of Al Jazeera International (AJI), launched on 15 November 2006.

It’s been slowly building up an audience, which it now claims to be around 90 million households.

But not in the United States of America: it was shut out of most American homes because cable companies have refused to carry their signal.

Elsewhere, commerce – not politics – was at play: some cable operators and hotels, already locked into various deals with the established global news channels of BBC World and CNN International, weren’t easily carrying AJI either.

Undeterred, AJI started this week to post some of their content on YouTube.

Well, things are getting more interesting now!

When AJI started less than six months ago, I wrote an op ed published on Both Media Helping Media (UK) and MediaChannel.org (USA). I argued that to make a real difference, AJI needs to not only analyse and present the news differently, but also gather news more ethically in the developing countries of the global South.

BBC World and CNN International have an appalling track record of doing this. “They epitomise a disturbing belief in international news and current affairs journalism: the end justifies the means.”

I added: “If products of child labour and blood diamonds are no longer internationally acceptable, neither should the world tolerate moving images whose origins are ethically suspect.”

I ended my essay: “We will be watching. And not just what’s shown on AJI, but how those pictures get there.”>

Well, it’s now become easier to follow AJI. I still keep an open mind about their English channel, even if it shows every sign of aping the BBC and CNN. Already we need to look hard to find a real difference.

Let’s give them one year to prove if they mean what they say — or not.

Read my full essay on Media Helping Media, with some reader comments

Read the version that appeared on MediaChannel.org

Science journalism, key to good governance

From Sydney, I have travelled to Melbourne to participate in the Fifth World Conference of Science Journalists, from 16 to 20 April 2007.

It’s the second time a science communication event brings me to this beautiful, multi-cultural Australian city. My first visit was in November 1996 to speak at SCICOMM ’96, the Fourth International Conference on the Public Understanding of Science and Technology, held at the University of Melbourne.

This week’s conference is promising to be interesting and engaging. The programme is full of talks, panels, debates and other activities. Several hundred fellow science journalists, and those researching or supporting science journalism, are expected to attend.

I’ll be kept busy being on two separate panels.

David Dickson, Director of the Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net), has just written an editorial that provides an excellent backdrop to the conference. He argues that the work of science journalists needs greater recognition as an essential precondition for transparent, responsive and accountable government.

Excerpts:

Much will be heard and discussed about how science journalists can inform — and, frequently, entertain — people with stories about scientific and technological developments. Equally important is their role in stimulating public debate in areas where science and technology can impact directly on the social and natural worlds, from stem cell research to global warming.

At the heart of many of these issues lies the key contribution that journalism can make to good governance. The concept of the journalist as a defender of the public interest is usually applied to those writing about overtly political issues, since it is here that the need for — and indeed the challenges to — a free press are often greatest.

But a growing number of political decisions, from allocating medical resources to promoting economic growth, have a scientific and technological dimension to them. It is therefore important to recognise the extent to which science journalism forms an essential component of a well-functioning democracy.
Read the full editorial on SciDev.Net website

Unfortunately, David is not able to join us in person — he’s holed up in London, finalising the organisation’s new five-year strategy.

Note:
I’m flying twin flags at this conference – as the Director of TVE Asia Pacific, and as a Trustee of SciDev.Net

I plan to be posting on to this personal blog as well as to a collective blog by several colleagues from SciDev.Net who are in Melbourne.

John Pilger: Being a journalist is a privilege

Towards the end of our week’s stay in Sydney for OUR Media 6 Conference, the organisers gifted us copies of The Australian Photojournalist, which is the journal of the Australian Photojournalists’ Association.

The June 2006 issue I received is a handsome volume and makes fascinating reading. On the inside front cover, I came across these words by John Pilger, the courageous and outspoken Australian journalist and film-maker hailing from Sydney.

“The best journalism is about looking behind facades and pretensions. It is never accepting the status quo; it is always questioning and remaining sceptical of the pronouncements and actions of those in authority, especially authority that is not accountable.

“The best journalism is following the dictum, wry but true: Never believe anything until it is officially denied. It is seeing the world from ground up, where ordinary people are, not from the top down, where the powerful reside. In many respects, the best journalists are the agents of ordinary people, not of those who preside over them.

“By looking at the world this way, from the standpoint of humanity not its would-be controllers, journalists will find themselves closer to the truth about all manner of things than they will ever be, following the manuals of establishment thinking.

“And by journalists, I mean photographers, too. The finest photographers produce images that ought to achieve mor than a gut reaction but help us make sense of events, great and small.

“Speaking personally, being a journalist is a privilege.”

Indeed. And few people bear that title with greater responsibility and passion than John Pilger.

I had the privilege of listening to John Pilger early on in my career, during one of the first international media conferences I attended in Sweden in the late 1980s. Of the three dozen speakers who spoke there, the only ones who have withstood the gradual erosion of memory are Pilger and Norwegian academic Johan Galtung.

Years later, I read Pilger’s book The New Rulers of the World — which was also the title of 2002 documentary film he wrote, produced and presented on the consequences of globalisation, taking Indonesia as the primary example of the serious problems with the new globalization.

And thank heavens, he shows no signs of slowing down — or mellowing.

The War on Democracy is John Pilger’s first major film for the cinema. Set in Latin America and the US, it explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Two years in the making, The War on Democracy is due to be released in cinemas in the UK on 15 June 2007.

He has produced more than 55 TV documentaries. Links to two of his more recent ones available online:

Breaking the Silence: Truth and Justice in the War on Terror (2004) on Google Video (51 mins)

Stealing a Nation (2004) on Google Video

Noam Chomsky on John Pilger

Images courtesy www.johnpilger.com

Michael Crichton, Mediasaurus and end of broadcasting

I just wrote a post on digital pioneer and futurist Mark Pesce’s views on the end of broadcasting and the mass media as we know it.

Television broadcasting is probably a dinosaur facing extinction, but let’s remember a bit of pre-history here: dinosaurs didn’t die off in an instant. No time lord zapped them with some mighty extincter machine. Their decline and eventual extinction was, it is believed, a slow and gradual process.

So it will be with broadcasting. Even if their distribution and revenue models are now undermined and will soon be obsolete, conventional broadcasting (as we know it) will continue to operate and try to compete, at least for a few years. And in the less developed countries with emerging economies, that process will take longer.

Which means we still have to engage TV broadcasters even as their Empires of Eyeball slowly crumble.

And let’s not write off those Empires just yet. I still remember an article in the early days of Wired magazine: appearing in Sep-Oct 1993 issue, it was titled Mediasaurus , and written by the well known science fiction author (and medical doctor) Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park and ER fame).

Michael Crichton, courtesy Michael Crichton website

He started the article as:
I am the author of a novel about dinosaurs, a novel about US-Japanese trade relations, and a forthcoming novel about sexual harassment – what some people have called my dinosaur trilogy. But I want to focus on another dinosaur, one that may be on the road to extinction. I am referring to the American media. And I use the term extinction literally. To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace.

And he ended:
So I hope that this era of polarized, junk-food journalism will soon come to an end. For too long the media have accepted the immortal advice of Yogi Berra, who said: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” But business as usual no longer serves the audience. And although technology will soon precipitate enormous changes in the media, we face a more immediate problem: a period of major social change. We are going to need a sensitive, informed, and responsive media to accomplish those changes. And that’s the way it is.

I just re-read the full article, and Crichton’s analysis is even more valid today than when it was written over a dozen years ago. But it’s also true that the broadcast industry – and conventional media as a whole – have changed and adapted.

No doubt that Mediasaurus still has an expiry date, but it’s not easy trying to guess exactly when the last of their kind drops dead.

Read the full article on Wired Online

Mark Pesce: In the company of a hypermind

Oops – I didn’t immediately realise that I was sharing a panel with a digerati – a highly accomplished pioneer and visionary of the digital world. And did he get us to think outside the idiot box!

His name is Mark Pesce. He is one of the early pioneers in Virtual Reality.
The co-inventor of VRML, he is the author of five books and numerous papers on the future of technology. Now based on Sydney, Australia, he is a writer, researcher and teacher.

Mark Pesce, courtesy Wikipedia

During the OUR Media 6 panel discussing how to safeguard community interests in the era of digital broadcasting, he was emphatic that broadcasting as we know it is doomed.

“The mass mind is not going to last. The sooner broadcasters recognise this, the better,” he said.

The broadcast model of one-way, point-to-multipoint, passive distribution of content is endangered by the digital revolution. The age of hyperdistribution has already dawned, and that is going to wipe out conventional distribution models sooner than later.

Hyperdistribution is audience-driven distribution of films and television programmes. The economics of production and distribution of media have changed radically – can film-makers adapt to the new rules? This is the question that Mark posed in talk given at the Sydney International Film Festival in Jube 2006 – listen to audio recording of his talk.

The near future of content distribution is in Internet-enabled, user-driven and often mobile devices. Already, two billion people – almost a third of humanity – walks around with mobile phones. These will provide new pathways to peddle new types of content to more audiences than ever before.

The film-making and TV-producing communities need to wake up to these new realities, Mark said.

His blog, Hyperpeople, is full of fascinating insights and extrapolations. Here’s one short extract:
Television producers are about to learn the same lessons that film studios and the recording industry learned before them: what the audience wants, it gets. Take your clips off of YouTube, and watch as someone else – quite illegally – creates another hyperdistribution system for them. Attack that system, and watch as it fades into invisibility. Those attacks will force it to evolve into ever-more-undetectable forms. That’s the lesson of music-sharing site Napster, and the lesson of torrent-sharing site Supernova. When you attack the hyperdistribution system, you always make the problem worse.

In May 2005, he wrote in an article titled Piracy is good? How Battlestar Galactica killed broadcast TV:
Television broadcasters owe their existence to the absence of substantially effective competition. When you’re dealing with real-world materials that are in naturally short supply – whether diamonds, oil, or broadcasting spectrum — a cartel can maintain and enforce its oligopoly. But when you’re working with media, which exist today as digital ephemera, bits that can be copied and reproduced endlessly at nearly zero cost, broadcast oligopolies are susceptible to a form of “digital arbitrage,” which can hollow-out their empires in an afternoon. Hyperdistribution techniques are more efficient than broadcast networks for television program distribution.

Read my other post on the OUR Media Forum on the community use of digital spectrum

Mark Pesce website

Mark Pesce blog, Hyperpeople

Blogging turns 10 – Happy Birthday to Us!

“Check this out. Amazing!”

Four simple words. Yet they sparked what snowballed into a revolution of sorts on the web.

Those were the very first words to be written on the first blog.

Blogging turned 10 on 1 April 2007.

Created by the US web guru Dave Winer, Scripting News is regarded as the first modern blog, though the term “weblog” was not used in the early days.

Having first gone online on 1 April 1997, Scripting News is still going strong and is credited with helping popularise RSS and podcasting, too.

Winer himself actually calls info.cern.ch, built by Tim Berners-Lee, the first weblog because it “pointed to all the new sites as they came online”.

According to his blog (what else?), Winer, 51, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software. He is a former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, my own favourite guide to the often bewildering but fascinating digital world.

Latest figures indicate an estimated 70 million blogs in existence, with around 1.5m posts being written every day.

According to Technorati, which monitors and aggregates blogs, some 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day – that’s about 1.4 blogs every second.

Oh, and what did Dave Winer want checked out? It was just a list of websites he had visited that day.

Read The Guardian (UK) article on 10 years of blogging.