Why Does News Reporting Irritate Us So Much These Days?

Take a look at any news report, and look carefully, you’ll probably find it’s not a news report at all but an op-ed, an opinion editorial. With the advent of the internet our sources of news started to change but, more importantly during this digital age, not only have our sources changed but our demand has changed too. If we turn on our computer and check the news, we need to see a new story, or a story that expands what we heard or read a few hours ago. We need to be constantly updated and constantly entertained. When I was young, our generation would read the news in the paper on the way to work and it would give us something to talk about, a discussion point based on our interests, for some, it was the sports page, for others, it was the headlines and for many, it was the editorial opinion where a seasoned journalist would analyse some important aspect of what was happening in the world and give their professional, and well informed, opinion based on their political leaning and the political leanings of the paper’s ownership.

News is no longer news, it’s either a story or it’s an opinion. Whatever happened to hard hitting fact gathering journalists? Our demands for instant news and constant updates has made it impossible for a new reporter to spend the time required on a story, so they outsource the stories they write.

Nowadays, I read the news and find I’m reading a story by a blogger who offers an opinion, perhaps well informed, but an opinion nevertheless. When it isn’t written by someone like this and it is written by a recognised reporter working for a recognised news outlet, it’s often just a rehash of a different story I read in a different place, sometimes it’s actually the same story. The worst kind of news for me is what I call “suggestive news” where nameless experts will offer “exclusive” information on the condition of anonymity, the headline usually ends with a question mark and the story asks a lot more questions than it answers. In other words, the reporter has written something, and is unable to confirm the veracity of the claim so, afraid of being scooped by a better reporter with facts and supporting evidence, goes to print with a suggestion that something is happening, has happened or is about to happen. Then, a few days later when they evidence affirms the story, the reporter can claim to be the real genius of the day, or if the evidence refutes the story, no harm done because the reporter was only raising a question “in the public interest”. That the question may have destroyed someone’s life never seems to bother these “reporters”. Nor will it get the reporter or the paper into any trouble because the story was only posed as a question not as a fact — in fact, it was just that, a story not a news report. So, it begs the question: should we change the name of a reporter to “story-teller”? Should we change the name journalist to story-gatherer. Perhaps the entire industry should stop calling itself news media and start calling itself “opinion collator”.

I’m not a reporter, I’m not a journalist and I have no training or experience of ever working in a newsroom, not even a school journal. Yet, I’ve been asked several times, by some very august bodies in China and the UK, if I would like to write op-eds for them. Through my Twitter feeds, Facebook and Wechat connections, I’ve met people who tell me they are journalists and when I ask who they write for, it’s not a journal, it’s a blogging site. When questioned, a couple of people have told me they wrote on those sites because it got them recognised and they were able to offer their stories to “real news outlets”. I guess this makes me a journalist too. I’ve had a Facebook story taken up by a Guangdong news outlet and I’ve had one of my blogs translated into Chinese and published in national Chinese media. But I can say with my hand on my heart, I’ve never been paid to write anything nice about China. I’ve never received any income from my blogs, my articles not even the two that were taken up by the media. I willingly gave both stories away in the interest of gaining a wider audience for myself and, in the case of one of the stories, a public information about what happens in Guangdong if you come back into China and are quarantined. Am I a journalist? I’ll let my readers decide the answer to this question, in my own opinion, I’m not.

The idea that real journalists are not out looking for stories, but are inside searching for people who write blogs that fit within their narrative is not an idea from fiction, it’s a reality. I can name specific examples, but I’m not going to. For one thing, it would be unfair on all those people who have received a by-line and now would like to say they are journalists. Naming their “editor in chief” as a lazy journo who can’t do a real job would simply belittle the efforts of those hard workers who do it for him/her. The other thing is probably that people who read this will know who they are anyway. And, if a journalist reads this and recognises him/herself, well, I hope they don’t simply ignore this article but give some thought to why it is that they do this and: is it the right thing to do?

The real negative impact from this method of “news gathering” is that we aren’t getting news. We’re getting opinion. I’m going to give one example I have personal knowledge about. I keep reading news about the concentration camps, the crack down on the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and, I’ll be honest, the weight of information I’ve seen about it, led (lead, for the real editing journalists!) me to believe there must be some truth in it. Last year I went to Xinjiang, I spent a lot of time there and it wasn’t my first trip, it was my fifth. I’ve seen some changes since my first visit in 2005, and when I am asked if I like them, the simple answer is no, I don’t, but I understand the need. There is a massive police presence there, everyone goes through facial recognition scanner several times a day. You can’t get into a shopping centre, a supermarket, a hotel or even a McDonald’s without going through a metal detector manned by a security officer. These stories are true and agree with the narrative. But this is where my agreement with the narrative, created by journalists who have never visited but have asked people questions, starts to differ greatly. Bear in mind that Xinjiang has been the scene of many terrorist attacks, but none for almost 4 years. When London was the scene of IRA attacks security was heightened. When cities in the USA were the scenes of attacks, security was heightened. People were put into prisons and people were even taken to “black ops” sites and interrogated. The evidence about this is overwhelming — but, since its in mainstream media and i’m questioning everything they write, I must ask myself: is it true?

There are many Uyghurs, and other ethnics there too, and they do speak their own language, every road sign, every street, many of the shops and restaurants have evidence of it, this is contrary to the narrative that the language and culture are being diminished or even destroyed. There are many, many mosques there, several of them are new, or very ornate and quite recently refurbished, this is contrary to the narrative that people aren’t allowed to observe their own religion and that Mosques are being torn down. If they are being torn down, I suggest it’s so a bigger and better mosque will be built either at the same place or a different, more suitable location. Many of the men wear beards, I’d read it was illegal to have a beard in Xinjiang — how did I read that and then I see many with beards? The oldest adobe Mosque outside of Africa, and I think the tallest in the world, is in Turpan, it’s still there, still operating as a Mosque and is a welcome tourist attraction; how does this information sit with the narrative?

Going on from this I didn’t just visit those mosques, I didn’t just visit the tourist attractions I got on a bicycle and rode out of Urumqi towards the border with Gansu. On my last visit before this, I was on a bicycle and rode in from the border of Gansu, all the way through Hami, Turpan and Urumqi then on to the border of Kazakhstan. I carried with me, mounted on the bike, a DJI Osmo Pocket camera, A DJI Drone and a Huawei Phone with a very high-resolution camera. My wife was with me, she had a DJI Action camera mounted on her bike, another Huawei hi-res camera phone and our Friend Bev was there with his trusty Apple iPhone. We were allowed to take photographs anywhere and everywhere we went, we never once, despite going through at least 20 police checkpoints, never once, were asked to show the police our photographs, they knew we had these cameras yet they didn’t care what we were seeing or taking pictures of. How does this fit with the narrative of a police state hiding concentration camps in the desert? We cycled more than 1200 km in Xinjiang, it took over two weeks to reach the border of Gansu and in that time we spoke to locals, we spoke with Chinese cyclists, we spoke with truck drivers, hotel receptionists, restaurant owners and waitresses and spoke with many polite and friendly police. We saw no evidence anywhere of any oppression: how does this fit with the narrative? We met Tajiks, Kazakhs, Hui and Han Chinese as well as Uyghurs. I’m foreign, my wife is Han Chinese from Guangdong and our friend is Australian. We slept by the road in tents, in sheds under bridges and in hotels. On one occasion, when there wasn’t a hotel open in Xin Xin Xia, the border town just next to Gansu, we were going to sleep in our tents at the back of a restaurant when a police officer told us we couldn’t do that. I was just about to get angry and do some jumping up and down when he said, he had called the owner of one of the closed hotels to come and open for us — just have a meal, he said, and you can have a room in about an hour. How does this fit with the narrative of police oppression? How does the BBC manage to irritate the local police so much they get kicked out, while were three travellers were allowed complete freedom of movement with several obvious cameras in the same region? Could it be that some parts of the region are indeed sensitive, there’s a rocket launching site out there, there are indeed some prisons, bear in mind there were some terrorists too. The are gas fields and petroleum refineries as well as oilfields and probably many other commercial secrets that the BBC would be asked not to go into. However, there is one obvious fact that can not be ignored and is a matter of record. The UE parliament has been invited to send diplomats into the area to see for themselves, the UN has been invited to send representatives into the region to see — both invitations were declined as the US State Department felt that China would control what could and could not be seen. Finally, there are 30 Muslim countries who have signed a declaration and lodged it with the UN supporting what China has done to bring peace and stability as well as increases in living standards to the millions of Muslims who live there quite happily — How does this fit with the narrative of oppression and cultural genocide? This is only one example that is my own experience.

Take any story you like, look at how the news is spun by CNN and then look at the same story on Fox news. You’ll see there isn’t one news story, there’s always more than one. One criticises the administration for how it handled a given set of circumstances, one praises the administration for how it handled the same set of circumstances — which is correct? Probably neither but readers, viewers or listeners will believe the narrative that best suits their own political views on the administration. In other words, news is not news, it’s the opinion of a body that would like you to follow their opinion.

So, our news is either ill-informed opinion gathered from people who have a point to make. Or it may be informed opinion gleaned from interviews and visits to the region (or incident) concerned but then presented by an organisation that wants you to follow their opinion. Or a final option, it’s copied from another source which may be ill informed opinion or an informed opinion but matches the opinion of the organisation that re-presents it to fit their own narrative.

Let’s be honest — a narrative is a story — what we’re seeing in mainstream news are no longer news, they are just stories…

They may be completely wrong, they may be completely right, or they maybe somewhere in between. You, as the informed and intelligent reader need to make the decisions for yourself.