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06
Sep

Crikey! The Knives are Already out for Steve

By Cynapse 2 Comments
Categories: Media and Noteworthy Events

The Crocodile Hunter isn’t even in the ground yet and already the pundits are taking shots at his legacy. Witness Germaine Greer’s toxic evaluation of Steve Irwin, published in the September 5 online edition of The Guardian:

Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress. Every snake badgered by Irwin was at a huge disadvantage, with only a single possible reaction to its terrifying situation, which was to strike. Easy enough to avoid, if you know what’s coming. Even my cat knew that much. Those of us who live with snakes, as I do with no fewer than 12 front-fanged venomous snake species in my bit of Queensland rainforest, know that they will get out of our way if we leave them a choice.
…
The only time Irwin ever seemed less than entirely lovable to his fans (as distinct from zoologists) was when he went into the Australia Zoo crocodile enclosure with his month-old baby son in one hand and a dead chicken in the other. For a second you didn’t know which one he meant to feed to the crocodile. If the crocodile had been less depressed it might have made the decision for him. As the catatonic beast obediently downed its tiny snack, Irwin walked his baby on the grass, not something that paediatricians recommend for rubbery baby legs even when there isn’t a stir-crazy carnivore a few feet away

It really shouldn’t be so surprising that memory of a larger-than-life character like The Crocodile hunter would eventually be ripped to shreds in the media … but could the commercial trolls not wait at least a week before doing so posthumously?

To be honest, I didn’t know who Germaine Greer was before reading her odious commentary, but based on some quick reading she sounds like a bitter holdover from the bra-burning era who has to resort to shock-factor in a vain attempt to remain relevant. Thus, she offered little more than the usual condescension of the far left without realizing that by causing animals minor discomfort for the purpose of show, Steve Irwin was bringing awareness to the much larger discomfort caused by industrialization and civilization. Educating millions of humans on how changes in our ecosystem can affect snakes is just a bit more helpful than bragging about snakes on your property or demonstrating your “superior” knowledge in the handling of animals (or children for that matter). True, Greer can’t be faulted concerning the Crocodile Hunter’s lapse in judgment by bringing his son so close to a crocodile, but as said before there’s a time and a place for snooty critiques.

I look forward to the abuse my blogosphere peers will heap on this testosterone-a-phobic relic Greer.

31
Aug

When Phallicism Goes Strange

By Cynapse 6 Comments
Categories: Media and Society

Ikea has a nice little controversy on their hands -

An IKEA catalogue with a photo that appears to show a dog with a larger-than-normal, human-like appendage has not been tampered with, according to the furniture giant’s Canadian office.

The first photo in the 2007 catalogue — a two-page, front-cover foldout — shows a young family lounging on a bed with a dog.

The dog, which appears to be a greyhound or whippet, seems to have one distinctly human male characteristic, prompting some to suggest the image had been tampered with by a mischievous employee using a program such as Photoshop.

ikeadog.jpg
Exhibitionist Dog Makes Computer Geeks Jealous…

Right … obviously some people have too much time on their hands (and obviously Cynapse is lacking inspiration today for propagating this story). At first glance, I thought this was the dog’s paw and nothing more. Only after reading the CTV story and a few other blogs did the idea of large human genitalia digitally grafted onto a dog for the cover of a furniture store catalog become semi-feasible. However a close-up on the dog appears to erase doubt.

ikeaclose.jpg
…For no readily apparent reason

As you can see, the appendage in question initially points to the dog’s head and folds back onto itself towards the dog’s posterior – precisely the position of a dog’s leg when laying down. It’s also very apparent that the appendage has fur on it, much like a leg and not much like a dog’s phallus.

So much for that, although I’m sure this issue will surface again. I still recall when hysterical parents thought that Disney was broadcasting subliminal messages to their children via the promotional artwork of The Little Mermaid.

lilmermaid.jpg

lilmermaidphallus.gif
The Castle Apparently Belongs to King Midas

People are very strange.

26
Aug

President Harper

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Media and Politics

Two indirect testaments to Canada’s elevated status in the political sphere since Canada came off the fence and became “relevant” on Middle East issues:

The Age
A critic proud to quote his critics
Steyn accuses many thinkers of refusing to call a spade a spade. What’s the common link with terror attacks around the world, from September 11, Bali, Madrid, the Toronto plot to kill the Canadian President and this month’s Heathrow plot? Not calling it like it is means “you corrode people’s faith in the institutions of the state,” he says. “They’ll simply say ‘these people are lying to us’.”

Jerusalem Post:
Canada’s pro-Israel premier lures Jews to Tories

Israeli and Australian journalists, listen carefully - Canada does not have a president or a premier (the latter exists for subsections of the country). Canada has a Prime Minister, and for all the kowtowing he’s been doing for the war effort (at considerable risk to both his political career and the nation’s spirited but limited armed forces), the least you all could do is remember the man’s title. Since Canada’s dogmatic conservatives are similar to America’s dogmatic leftists when it comes to fawning over the “moral superiority” of selected foreign nations, I bet virtually no one calls the JPost or The Age on their disrespectful oversights.

25
Aug

Reader Beware - Fat Stats

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Media

Critical analysis of media events is now a hot topic, thanks to several exposés of misleading information propagated through major news services. These criticisms are to be expected on highly emotional and divisive topics like the Middle East Conflict; however, news junkies and casual readers alike should be vigilant in dissecting articles on topics that at first may be seen as common knowledge. Consider a recent front-page article in the Globe and Mail concerning the perception of Canadian parents about the health of their children:

obesity.jpg
Click to Enlarge

Firstly, the terminology in the article is inconsistent. The title states that 9% of parents believe that their children are fat, whereas the article itself states that “9 per cent of Canadian parents believe their children are overweight or obese”. While these terms are sometimes used interchangeably in conversation they are not 100% congruent. “Fat” is a qualitative observation defined as having an unusual amount of fat. It is essentially a personal judgment call and what one person calls fat may not be fat to someone else. Conversely, “overweight” and “obese” have clinical definitions – having a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9 qualifies one as being overweight, while someone with a BMI of 30 or higher is defined as obese. This may seem like a small point, but one can easily be overweight without looking “fat”. Hence asking a parent if her child is fat is an indication of little more than her child’s appearance and her perception of what constitutes fatness.

More problematic is the interpretation of the numbers themselves. Let’s assume the inconsistency described in the previous paragraph is a non-issue. According to the article, 9% of parents think their children are fat, whereas 26% of children are actually obese or overweight. One could easily conclude that Canadian parents are clueless about the health of their children. However, the statistical comparison is invalid – a parent can have multiple children and make the same erroneous evaluation for each child. Consider the following example:

  1. Assume a population of 100 parents and a population 200 children. Each parent has 2 children.
  2. A survey of the 100 parents reveals that 9 of them believed their children were fat.
  3. A survey of the children reveals that 40 are in fact overweight or obese

Based on this scenario one could conclude that 9% of parents think their children are fat whereas 20% are actually fat. However, because each parent has 2 children, a maximum of 18% of children might actually be labeled as fat by their parents (the 18% is a “maximum” because a parent could conclude that only 1 of her children is fat). This makes the percentage figures misleading because the parents are almost certain to be portrayed as less knowledgeable than in reality. The article did not mention a 1:1 parent to child relationship in the survey, and for that matter mentions “children” several times in relation to parental opinions.

The point is that critical thinking should always be employed when reading news reported in the mainstream media or elsewhere. Distortions and misleading information (sometimes intentional, sometimes accidental or due to space constraints) are a natural part of human communication and we should actively filter this information rather than passively accepting more favorable sentiment as fact.

07
Aug

Reuters Drops the Ball

By Cynapse 1 Comment
Categories: Media, Politics, Uncategorized and World Politics

Merely days after CU expressed reservations about the accuracy media coverage in the Middle East, a new controversy has erupted:

Reuters, the global news and information agency, told a freelance Lebanese photographer on Sunday it would not use any more of his pictures after he doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut.
The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news websites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shiite Islamic group Hezbollah, now in its fourth week.
“The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under,” said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

Granted Ms Whittle has a job to do, but she really needs to learn the difference between removing dust marks and cloning. The former involves the removal of “specks” on a digital photographs, and cannot possibly result in the disparity of colors shown below. By contrast, cloning involves copying a portion of a photograph to another part of the photograph. When done well the picture looks seamless and unaltered. Poor cloning results in an apparent texture pattern, which is clearly visible in the smoke patterns of this photo.

beirut-original.jpg

A possible original photograph (Source: LGF)

beirut-pshopped.jpg

Beirut Photograph, as Published by Reuters

Reuters has lost any media source’s most important asset – credibility. Already, pundits are questioning the validity of Reuters’ Qana photographs and no doubt other photographs from Hajj are under scrutiny.

The original charge of photo manipulation was made by Charles Johnson of the popular Pro-Israeli blog Little Green Footballs. For his effort, Johnson was threatened via email and the email was IP traced to none other than Reuters. Current speculation is that Inayat Bunglawala, Media Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, may have been involved in creating the threat. Meanwhile, more charges of doctored and staged photos are being levied by the hour.

The discovery of the doctored photos and forced admission of error by Reuters represents a huge victory for the blogosphere; by forcing a large media conglomerate to admit error and correct its ways, the independent online media has established itself as a semi-reliable check and balance on news disseminated by the mainstream media.

The loser in this skirmish is obvious. Hajj is clearly the instigator of the controversy, but clearly the blame belongs with the editing staff at Reuters. With a topic as divisive and high-stakes as the conflict in the Middle East, the news agency should be going over every piece of information it receives with a fine-toothed comb. Reuters could easily argue that LGF and other blogs attacking this story are partisan and no more interested in accuracy than Hajj, and they might be right; however, Reuters is supposed to differentiate itself from blogs (for which there is no minimum bar of journalistic integrity) with original, accurate and verified content. By not adhering to such standards, Reuters gives the public no reason to trust their reports any more than those of any idealist with a Blogspot account.

Also, Reuters, fire your PR department. That was a terrible excuse.

04
Aug

More Information, More Sources, Less Clarity

By Cynapse 3 Comments
Categories: Media

“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.”
-Benjamin Franklin

Jack of Jack’s Newswatch takes a moment to ponder the media’s objectivity concerning the recent Israeli attack on Qana:

Lately I’ve been trying to focus on the situation in Israel and the misleading press reports that are being constantly pumped out by CNN, Reuters, AP and many others. I truly wonder whose side they’re on and I would “just betcha” that if the homes or families of any of these “honest” reporters were threatened in the manner that Israeli citizens are now being threatened we’d soon get an entirely different picture of the situation.
…
I should point out now that that I have reasonable cause to believe (and do believe) that news outlets deliberately fail to tell the motoring public all that is known about a news event for reasons which are highly suspect (and completely unexplainable). A good “for instance” is the important information developed by very hardworking bloggers on the situation in Qana. I’ve been following it for days because I am also aware of the situation in the Palestinian territories wherein a criminal organization made up an entirely false story and claimed a massacre that never happened.

The label “objective” can be very difficult to ponder, much less award to a single news source. On one hand I have tremendous respect for the BBC and CNN as international news organizations that have done much to keep remote areas of the world informed on current events. Their attempts to be balanced and objective will always be criticized by partisan groups like Honest Reporting because such groups are more interested in spreading their political causes than honestly evaluating “facts”.

On the other hand, BBC and other news networks have been caught in some very embarassing SNAFU moments, such as the “massacre” in Jenin that turned out to be completely overstated. Also, I remember watching commentary from Eric Margolis and CBC reporters as the US first attacked Iraq post-9/11. Margolis stated it was likely that 10000 Iraqis were killed after the first bombings, while a CBC reporter implored the viewers to remember that Iraqi citizens personally did nothing to George W Bush or America. “What does that have to do with the story?” I thought to myself. Moreover, how did Margolis come up with the estimates (which were grossly overstated)? Quite often, MSM organizations both show organizational bias and try to be the first organization to get the dramatic story. The result is a body of news controlled by elitist conglomerates that can be far from objective.

Alternatively, the blogosphere offers an unprecedented opporunity for readers to get information direct from individuals involved in conflict. Blogs like Live From an Israeli Bunker allow viewers to get a first-hand, uncensored account of events that occur in hotspots like Israel. Political aggregators and blog commentators can summarize and editorialize this information, creating a parallel news media that has equal or greater value to many readers than do the CNN’s and BBC’s of the world. However, independent media has always been a wild west in that there are no rules for what can be posted or standards on fact checking. Earlier this year, the New York Times got in hot water for publishing classified information and still risk legal action as a result (not to mention scorn from the military that was imperiled as a result of the information leak). As bloggers and other independent media -whom now play on a level cyberspace field with the big media outlets- struggle to differentiate themselves in the sea of recycled factoids, we could see a lot more “exclusives” that have been stolen, prematurely-declassified or simply made up.

Only the underlying danger remains constant - consumers prefer to read what they’d like to hear. As such, “due dilligence” tends to be exercised only when one doesn’t like the tone of the message. For this reason, it would be a mistake for readers to become comfortable with any one news source or family of news sources. The increased selection and channels for news has, ironically, made objective analysis more difficult.

22
Jun

CBC’s Un-National-istic Programming

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Media

After months of being knocked around by Olympics coverage and hockey games, CBC’s flagship news program, The National, will be pushed out of its familiar 10:00pm slot once again. However the iconic broadcast will not be replaced by special programming or even Canadian content. Instead, CBC –a publicly owned Canadian network- has chosen to simulcast The One: Making a Music Star. The upcoming reality TV series is produced by ABC – a privately owned American network.

For years Canadians have complained about the CBC’s “dry” content and artsy/leftist slant. If anything, the CBC is guilty of being too experimental with its homegrown productions and attempting to be high-brow with its programming. Some of the documentaries on The Passionate Eye easily equal the quality programming on specialty channels like A&E or The History Channel, but frankly will never hold as wide of an appeal as high JPM (jolts-per-minute) television. Reactionary politics and vicarious rags-to-riches contests put more bums in seats than Canada: A People’s History.

Still there are people who complain that their tax dollars should not be used to fund weird TV productions that cannot be understood or appreciated by the “average” person. Perhaps this true; however Canadians are about to discover just how badly their tax money can be wasted. What’s worse than paying for original and inaccessible material? Paying for unoriginal and otherwise-accessible material, of course!

  • ABC News is available in one or multiple incarnations on Rogers, Bell, DirecTV, Cogeco and practically every other cable or satellite service in Canada. Far from being a specialty network, ABC is available as part of the basic package. Hence, most viewers already have access to The One – without necessary additional cost to the taxpayer
  • Privately-owned Canadian networks CTV and Global have virtually cornered the market on simulcast American TV Shows, from Law & Order to American Idol. Once again, this is accomplished without additional tax dollars
  • Speaking of American Idol, Making a Music Star is far from breaking new conceptual ground. The show follows the lives of several pop-star wannabes as they receive vocal coaching and other assistance from celebrity mentors. Every week the contestants will have to perform before a live studio audience, who will democratically send one home. The last contestant standing will receive a recording contract from a major company and the 15 minutes of fame that goes along with the post-TV inflated sales of their first album.

To its credit, CBC appears to have a plan for its first foray into reality TV (not to be confused with documentaries, which are actually real … but that’s another discussion). A Canadian spin-off of the show is being considered and will in turn be used to lure viewers into watching The National. News anchor Peter Mansbridge is cautiously optimistic about the plan. ACTRA and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting are decidedly less so. Hopefully this “investment” pays off for CBC.

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