Tag: sensationalist media

Danger From Above!

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Page 4 of today’s Cape Times warns of dangers from above which may threaten your safety in and around the Mother City.

First up is the hot air balloon crash at Beyerskloof vineyards in the Cape Winelands on Saturday – witnessed by none other than Beyerskloof supremo Beyers Truter:

The Civil Aviation Authority is investigating why a private hot air balloon drifted into power cables on a local wine estate at the weekend.
Two women were seriously injured in the incident. Louise Vorster, 57, and Sanet Koster, 50, both from Melkbosstrand, are recovering at Stellenbosch Mediclinic. A third woman, Marie Jacobs, 50, from Johannesburg, sustained minor injuries along with the pilot Justin Fowler.

According to a weekend newspaper, Beyerskloof wine estate owner Beyers Truter and one of his staff were walking in the vineyards when they witnessed the incident around 7.30-8am.
Truter said he called Netcare 911 emergency service after seeing sparks and flames from the electrical cables, which surrounded the balloon.

The estate was without electricity for an hour after the incident.

There is no word there or whether any of the vines were damaged. I’m trying desperately to get comment from the vineyard before my Mum reads this and fears the worst.

And then the much sensationalised and leapt upon story of the day, the fact that some bolts are “failing” on the roof of the Cape Town Stadium (see here)

Sections of the roof of Cape Town Stadium appear to be coming loose thanks to “bolt failure”, and the city says it is to spend R1 million to investigate what’s causing it.
A few bolts in the stadium roof were found to have failed during routine inspections a year ago. The roof was designed to withstand strong south-easters.

But the city has guaranteed the stadium’s safety and intends to recover the costs from the party responsible.

OMG! Coming loose! A few bolts! Routine inspections! A year ago! 

But a million Rand is a lot of money, as someone pointed out:

Councillor Yagyah Adams of the Cape Muslim Congress, who attended a finance portfolio committee meeting which discussed the matter, asked why the city would spend as much as R1m.

“If we’re paying R1m just to investigate, what about the repairs?” asked Adams.

Well, the city will recover the costs from the party responsible. They should have mentioned that at the meeting you attended. Or maybe you just should have listened while you were there, Yagyah.

Ironically, these “few bolts” are being cited as another reason why WPRU shouldn’t move to the new stadium, but hey – at least things at Green Point are still “under guarantee”. The same is probably true of Durban’s Stadium Skycar which broke down last weekend due to “a valve malfunction, leading to a loss of oil and hydraulic pressure” !!!!1!! OMG! again!

Conveniently, no-one can remember if there were any teething problems at Newlands, since the ground was built in the late 1880’s, prior to the advent of sensationalist media and modern stadium evacuation procedures.

Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid!

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Hysterical British Tabloid Reporting (HBTR) returns to South Africa, a few months after comprehensively failing to derail the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

This from Sky News:

This isn’t anything new. These stories hit the SA newspapers months ago. But the Chernobyl link is nice – it’s obvious that they’ve had to think about things for a while before that one came to them. But once you consider the two issues, the similarity is obvious:

We were told that we were about to visit the most radioactive place on the whole trip. Geiger counters were brought out, and we watched the numbers double, triple, and quadruple, to a level far higher than we had seen near the reactor itself. Out the window we could see overgrown grass fields. It was clear nobody stopped here for trivial reasons. We drove through. It was clearly not a place for a roadside picnic.

and:

It is contaminated with uranium and other heavy metals and is as acidic as lemon juice.

Because Jo’burg is no place for a roadside picnic either.

But listen – this can be sorted out fairly easily. When I have lemon juice issues with my pancakes, I add some sugar. Perhaps that’s all that is needed here. Sugar, in Biblical proportions, pumped into the ground in Gauteng.

And then, once the threat of the Acid Mine Drainage has been neutralised, Emma T can tell us about the 9/11-style dental problems that sweetening Jo’burg’s foundations has caused.

Seen it all before

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One of the biggest eye-openers you can have is seeing a story in the press of which you have personal knowledge.
When you read the article, you can marvel at just how inaccurate and mis-representative the reporter or journalist is being.
Applying this new-found enlightenment to other stories in the media can lead to chronic cynicism when reading newspapers or perusing internet news sites. You may suddenly find that you want to take the content with an appropriately sized pinch of salt. Builder’s Warehouse sell 25kg bags of salt for exactly this purpose. Buy a couple – they’ll will last you a week.

Of course, it could be that you just got unlucky and that all the other stories out there are 100% bang on, deadly accurate.
But that seems rather unlikely, doesn’t it?

And it was with a heavy and cynical heart that I read the latest attack on Brazil’s preparations for the 2014 World Cup in the Guardian.

And so to 2014. Three years ago, when Brazil was unveiled as the host of the next World Cup, the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promised a tournament so well organised that even his country’s greatest rivals – the Argentinians – would be unable to criticise it. Now, however, even Brazilians are starting to speak out against the lack of progress in stadium construction and infrastructure projects, amid concern over corruption and bad planning and calls for the number of host cities to be cut from 12 to 10.

It’s exactly what they were saying about South Africa 4 years ago. And that’s got me on the phone to my local salt mine.

Because the issues over crime and security were unfounded. The allegations that the stadiums would not be ready or would not be up to standard were nonsense. Our transport system upgrades were completed and well utilised. And when the media realised this, they moved on to more trivial, more foolish stories of snakes, race wars and the like.

I know you’re as thankful as I am that SA stayed free of significant seismological activity during the tournament.

The Guardian article describes Brazil’s 2014 bid as being “ambitious”. Well, good. What were they expecting? Brazil to submit their bid documents detailing six 50-year-old stadiums and hope that visitors will find their way around on foot, noting that it might be a long walk from Rio to some of the stadiums in the north of the country?

And then the dig at the transport infrastructure:

Even in the country’s affluent south-east, motorways are often crater-ridden dual carriageways; in the poorer north-east and mid-west their standard is frequently life-threateningly bad.

Has Tom Phillips actually relied on anything other than hearsay and his own creative licence before reporting that? Because it does sound like much of the stuff I was hearing about South Africa in the (elongated) run-up to the 2010 World Cup. And I know that a lot of that wasn’t actually true – or was at the very least blown out of all proportion. Who could forget Louise Taylor’s nonsense in the… er… Guardian (and which I dealt with ever so briefly at the bottom of this)?

Marcotti wrote of some long, unpleasant drives in the dark after covering matches. Commenting on the lack of dual carriageways and lit highways in certain areas, he described negotiating one road heading towards Jo’burg as “like snorkelling in a sewer filled with squid ink”. Shortly afterwards came the sad news that a German journalist had been killed in a car accident while driving to a Confederations Cup match.

Personally I’d have preferred the 2010 World Cup to have gone to Egypt. Yes, it would have been very hot (although it’s a dry heat) and it would, in places, have been dirty and ultra-chaotic, but it would also have been friendly and welcoming. And, in terms of crime, Egypt is extremely safe. Eyebrows would doubtless have been raised at the potential for organisational mayhem, the nightmarish Cairo traffic and the downtown air pollution, but surely if the Egyptians could build the pyramids they could host a World Cup.

Of course, the Egyptians did host the World Cup back in 4010 BC and it was a highly lauded tournament – but with their abilities as pyramid builders, it was always going to be a success. And this even though many of their roads were very poorly lit.
And South Africa’s success some 6000 years later was achieved despite it going dark at night. Amazing.

But I digress.

Maybe Brazil are behind schedule. Maybe the transport infrastructure is poor. Maybe there is political interference at every level (perish the though that this would occur anywhere else in the world).
But I don’t believe all I read in the newspapers. And I’ve seen what can be achieved in four years and thus I refuse to write them off already. Looking at many of the comments below Phillips’ piece, I can see that a lot of others are losing faith with these stories too.

Of course, when Brazil isn’t ready and the 2014 tournament is in disarray, Phillips will be able to look back and tell us that he told us so. But where is Louise Taylor’s admission that she got it so very hopelessly wrong about South Africa in 2010?

Força, Brasil!

Lineker quits Mail on Sunday

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Former England footballer and (now former) Mail on Sunday columnist Gary Lineker has quit the newspaper over its “very damaging” entrapment story on (now former) head of the (now former) England 2018 World Cup bid Lord Triesman.

His article appealed to the media to stop running negative stories that could hamper England’s chances of hosting the tournament. There seems to be some sort of thirst in the press for negative stories about our squad and our management going into a major competition.
Whatever you think, it will not help. I think it might be a time that we can perhaps reflect on this as a nation and perhaps think of the responsibility our newspapers have. They all seem to champion the national side and show patriotism but when push comes to shove and they have the opportunity of selling an extra few newspapers, at times I think they will make errors of judgement in stories that are basically just private issues.

Asking Mail Group newspapers to “stop running negative stories”? Whatever next? 
Inviting Man United fans to stop being arrogant? Begging the Pope to stop being catholic? Imploring Julius Malema to stop being… Julius Malema?

Keep dreaming, Gary. It’s not going to happen. And despite the widespread condemnation of the Triesman story, the methods used to get it and the implications of publishing it, people will still keep buying the trashy tabloids, because the public are as hypocritical as the newpapers themselves.

I’m actually not a huge fan of the England 2018 bid. I haven’t followed it with great interest, but from what I have seen, it seems that some big mistakes and dodgy decisions were made when they were putting it together. So if it goes to Russia or Spain and Portugal, I won’t be sad. But I would rather it go to one of those other countries because their bid was better, than because the Mail on Sunday published some half-cocked nonsense.

Still, I think enough damage has probably been done to say “it was the Mail wot lost it!” if England don’t get the nod on December 2 2010.

More reading: The Guardian on three Mail on Sunday articles that didn’t make Lineker resign.
Number 2 is particularly amusing.

Reuters joins the bandwagon

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Oh PLEASE!

Tourists in South Africa including soccer fans heading to the World Cup must guard against mosquito bites and avoid contact with raw meat due to an outbreak of Rift Valley fever, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.
Many tourists visit South Africa’s game parks and the WHO warned visitors to avoid contact with dead animals — another way of catching the disease.

Yes. Do avoid the dead animals which litter South Africa’s game parks. Indeed, last time I was in a game park, I couldn’t move for dead animals. There are so many of them that they use them to make the roads and houses out of. Dead animals. Everywhere.
What Reuters and the WHO fail to mention is that death may also be caused by several of the live animals in these parks as well. In fact, I would argue that this is far more dangerous than having contact with the dead animals. Which are everywhere.

Officials in South Africa, the host of the 2010 World Cup from June 11 to July 11, have reported 172 human cases of the animal viral disease this year.

172 cases, eh? Out of a population of 46 million people. Truly Hectic. 
What they neglect to mention is that ALL 172 WERE FOOTBALL FANS! Because that is the high risk group for Rift Valley Fever.
I know this because I’m a microbiologist. And a football fan.
But I’m safe because I wear one of those suits like Dustin Hoffman in Outbreak while I’m wading through the thigh-deep heaps of dead animals in the local game parks.

The virus can be transmitted through the handling of animal tissue during slaughtering or butchering, assisting with animal births, veterinary procedures or from disposing of carcasses.
Herders, farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians are at higher risk of infection.

Sorry, that should obviously read:

Herders, farmers, slaughterhouse workers, veterinarians and football fans are at higher risk of infection.

Especially if those football fans are going to watch some footy in our amazing new stadiums and then go and do some herding, farming, abattoir and veterinary work. Which, after all, is what football fans usually do after games.

Ah yes, it brings a tear to the eye as I remember watching the mighty Red And White Wizzards at Beautiful Downtown Bramall Lane and then hurrying, along with the other 30,000 spectators, out along the A630 and the A57 out into Derbyshire to assist with animal births, handle some animal tissue (careful now) and dispose of some carcasses.
I mean, it’s like a ritual for most football fans, isn’t it? A quick pint before the game, 90 minutes of exciting football with a dodgy pie at half time and then off to do some veterinary procedures.
Right.

So yes. You might get Rift Valley Fever if you interact with dead animals in South Africa.
So don’t interact with dead animals in South Africa.

And if you believe this sort of thing poses a genuine risk to you. And the thing about the earthquakes. And the supposed race war. 
Then just don’t come. Really.

We won’t miss you.