Glass 1% empty is what I’m going to brand posts which look at the media’s habit of taking what to my mind is clearly a good-news story, then somehow finding the grain of bad news in it and focusing on that. This happens rather often, so I won’t be covering them all.
Friday’s Guardian reported that the EU is soon to enforce a reduction in mobile phone call charges across Europe. Brilliant, I hear millions of mobile phone users cry.
But wait, cry the newspaper editors. It can’t be good news, it has to be bad somehow. Oh yes, here we go, this’ll do for the headline:
Forced price cuts would end free handsets, phone firms tell Brussels
So the story proceeds with the principle established that the call cost-cutting is OK but the “end” of free handsets is very bad news.
But just think about this for a minute. In the environmentally conscious world in which we sometimes like to imagine we now live, shouldn’t cost be related to consumption and waste? How does the mobile phone industry’s current business model shape up then?
| Activity | Consumption and wastefulness | Cost to consumer |
|---|---|---|
| Making calls | Negligible | High |
| Replacing your phone at least once a year to stay fashionable and cutting-edge | High | Negligible |
It’s not a great match, is it?
I don’t think I need to redraw my table to represent the model to be “forced” upon us by the EU, do I?
I suppose this comes back to the same principle as my thoughts on car running costs last week. In a capitalist system, to tackle environmental problems, the costs of polluting/ wasting/ damaging the environment need to be incurred in proportion to the pollution emitted/ waste generated/ damage inflicted.
What’s more, the table above is a completely artificial construct of the mobile phone industry. If we change the heading of the right-hand column to “Cost to mobile phone company”, “High” and “Negligible” swap places. It costs the companies little to connect and sustain calls, but of course phones are worth far more than they’re ever sold for.
If we’re to stand a chance of tackling global warming, companies simply can’t continue to be allowed to subsidise – often heavily – environmental damage and waste, getting consumers to pay through the nose for relatively non-damaging activities instead.
And that’s why, unlike the mainstream media, I think this story is, let’s say, 99% good news.
Filed under: Environment, Glass 1% empty, Media, Mobile phones, Newspapers, Technology, Waste
This is the problem with so-called non-partisan reporting. Sometimes the other side of the argument just isn’t worth reporting. You see this all the time with reporters slavishly putting a bland PR quote at the end of an article just for the impression of balance. All the facts will point towards the true version of events, and the quote may add nothing to the story, but for whatever reason they feel they must show the other side. Even if the other side is just bunk.
The British media seems to be generally in the habit of saying that anything the EU does *must* be bad in some way.
I’m always amazed at how little awareness of the Schengen agreement there is in the UK. It’s almost like the media don’t want to risk the masses warming to the idea.