[LINK] Lock up your kids...

[Richard Chirgwin]

It is, at least, encouraging that a couple of journalists are actually 
willing to swim even briefly against the current.

Vietnam, A Reporter's War by Hugh Lunn provides a marvellous 
illustration of how everybody can end up telling the same story. The 
press releases from the Pentagon got carried by all newsagencies, 
whereas an on-the-ground report only got carried by a couple. The 
"minority report" was always more likely to be discounted against the 
weight of other stories telling the same thing.

And so it is in the "politics of fear". As long as the wires work 
feverishly to ensure that they carry the same story at the same time, 
there is weight and gravitas attached to the received wisdom, regardless 
of the relationship between the facts and the press release. And 
everybody feels obliged to report the press release as quickly as 
possible, because there's nothing worse than being a day late with the 
story - so the light and superficial treatment of the statistic ("half 
of children have been contacted...") gains currency long before it's 
been analysed.

It's instructive to read the stuff George Smith (AKA Dick Destiny) 
writes for The Register in his attempts to debunk crap-science terror 
stories. The basic theme is that a significant chunk of the "terror 
threats" put forward in the press aren't threats at all, not because of 
the people involved, but because most "terrorists" are laughably 
ignorant of how to go about their business, and completely ignorant of 
science.

And that's the point: the business of manufacturing threats is just as 
important to the security community as it is to the terrorist.

RC

Rick Welykochy wrote:
> Jan Whitaker wrote:
>
>> What I find interesting is that this is out of the Institute of 
>> Public Affairs, which I believe is a conservative think tank. These 
>> are John Howard's -- um -- friends. More writing on the wall?
>>
>> http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/better-to-be-alert-than-netalarmed/2007/09/15/1189277042177.html 
>>
>> Better to be alert than NetAlarmed
>> Chris Berg
>> September 16, 2007
>>
>> THE internet will kill your children, or something.
>>
>> At least, that is the message of the Federal Government ads plastered 
>> on the side of every second tram trundling down Swanston Street.
>
> More politics of fear. Get used to it or rebel.
>
> Michael Duffy did a bit of research into Helen Coonan's claims and 
> wrote an
> oped piece on Friday in the SMH. Among the things he found (from memory):
>
> (*) when it is claimed that up to one half of all kids online are 
> approached
>     by strangers, that figure includes SPAM emails; a SPAM email or 
> any email
>     the came from a stranger unknown to the child was considered a 
> contact
>
> (*) In NSW there has been ONE charge laid against a person for 
> grooming a child
>     online for sex in the past two years
>
> (*) Obtaining actual figures and methodologies for these alarming 
> "fear statistics"
>     is very difficult
>
> George Orwell would be proud. Our government is buying into the whole
> "economy of fear" as promulgated by our American friends. You could do 
> worse
> than read Naomi Klein's article in the Good Weekend about the 
> multi-trillion
> dollar economy of fear that has replaced the economy of the cold war 
> in the
> USA. Seems those yanks always need something to be paranoid about and now
> that they have a never ending war with an unidentifiable enemy, 1984 
> is well
> and truly here.
>
> As thinking Australians we must do all we can to avoid following the 
> Americans
> into a corporatised culture of fear and ignorance.
>
> cheers
> rickw
>
>