Poor Quality Journalism

Today I feel angry, whatever, I read I feel I am not getting anyone who is capable of facing the real issue. Is half the world blind? Obviously extremely intelligent people are writing these articles and surveys but why are they not reflecting properly?

First the business published a critique of the Stern report about the environmental impact of global warming. It completely misses the point….. I want to hit my head and go doh….. The point isn’t the world is getting warmer the point is the cumulative effect of humans on the environment. The issue is population…. consumption, global warming, running out of resources, degradation of water supplies.. talking about one issue global warming is pointless, we have to talk about human’s global effect on the environment. So the issue is how we deal with all these issues not just one… the greatest danger doesn’t come from global warming it comes from population pressure combined with scarce resources, made scarcer. Then the question is how do we transform capitalism and democracy to cope in a world where people might be poorer and on one which isn’t based on always more people more consumption? Finally when political power is closely linked to economic power which large country is going to take the steps to perhaps make itself poorer and reduce its population? This is the problem…

The Independent was equally disappointing but from the opposite angle. They had a full front page on the increase in Air Travel… now really… so the Editor of the independent where does he go on holiday? I bet he takes his kids to a cold beach in the UK….. the problem isn’t air travel the problem is population and wealth… so do you propose making us poorer Independent? Tell your kids that this year they are not going on holiday and not having an IPOD. Will you, of course you won’t so you blame the government! You have to first face the truth, we have to have less kids and accept less…. Are we willing to do it…..I don't know if I am I like my life too much That is the question… finally whatever we do in the UK doesn’t matter a jot without change globally…..

Finally some notes on poorer quality work in the Economist the last few weeks: The Economist. High quality/low quality. The Economist represents what is best in free thinking journalism and sometimes what is worst. It can change direction make bold statements, however, on occasions its journalism can fall in quality. The last two weeks there have been several articles which have been well constructed full of facts which have said very little. The first of which was an article talking about the rise of the Asian consumer, quoting hundreds of facts how exports to this area are rising… America’s importance is declining. Tell us something we didn’t know….
The really interesting points were never mentioned though. Which countries would lose from this shift in importance to the East, so they are importing more, but most of this will be capital goods to help their exports… now the really important details, assuming Asian consumers will be the future drivers of the world Economy as the US weakens then what will they want to buy from the West? What can the West export for them. This was never considered, never debated, and in any change there are always winners and losers who will be the losers.. oh so they will buy luxury goods will they?.... hmmm… this will keep Europe going… now then time for some deeper analysis. The second article that was of rather weaker quality was regarding the changing nature of the US economy and the falling long term trend rate of growth…. Hundreds of facts were quoted but the impact never was… analysis is explaining what might happen not just diagnosing whether it will… only one fact is necessary to know that it will, that is the baby boomers retiring, this could have been said in a paragraph with just a few facts…. What happens is far more important, how this will effect the world, and more importantly how do we create a sustainable economy which isn’t always based on more people, more consumption….. one day we will reach a Malthusian problem.. when I don’t know, but something always based on more is going to hit problems eventually. The rest of the magazine has been great well done… but we should always pick up on what is of poorer quality.

In conclusion why does this happen, because most people don't like being properly challenged in debate they like to hear an alternative to what they think, so they sit round not really challenging each other..... so here I am challenging you all to improve... they’ll hate me for it.