Success stories reported as failure

Something I often see happening in the media is the reporting of success stories as failures. The scenario is this: Something unfortunate and unpredictable happens. The authorities / people responsible clean up the mess and few-to-no parties are harmed, physically or financially. This major success is reported by the news as a failure. Today’s story about the keys at Wembley going missing was a great example of this phenomenon. Something very unfortunate happened – a set of keys went missing at a major Olympic venue. But here’s the thing: this fact was discovered instantly, and security protocol was initiated which resulted in all the locks being changed before there was any chance of security being compromised. This proves the security systems...

Posted by on Jul 30, 2012 in Thoughts | 2 comments

Why is bin Laden dead?

So. Osama bin Laden is dead. I think we’ve all noticed that by now. Thankfully some of the media and public figures have started to decry the celebration and chanting following his death. It is still the death of a human being and this is not cause for jubilation. What I’m more concerned about, however, is why he’s dead at all. We’re told there was a “firefight” and that “no Americans were harmed”. We’re also told that he “tried to hide behind women”. This doesn’t sound like an all-out battle to the death to me. It sounds like they cornered him and then killed him anyway. There’s a name for this: summary execution. It’s illegal under the Geneva/Hague Conventions. And with good...

Posted by on May 2, 2011 in Politics | 3 comments