China Fear Mongers
Like I said yesterday in my post about the stories promoting fear, I don’t like this kind of “reporting.” And today’s Guardian article, Made in China, Recalled in Britain, is a prime example why.Now remember, I get more business when the media back home bashes China like this—fear promotes the need for my services in China. So my agenda is clear—just tell the truth about working in China, I try too. But of course that’s more or less impossible for the majority of “journalist” back home the majority of whom have never been to China or may have been here on a 10 day whirlwind trip to a few factories, the Great Wall and a couple of East Coast cities.So the article in the Guardian claims that there was a 22% increase in consumer product recalls in GB this last year. Then they quote unions saying that it’s because of imports. Of course, the other opinion (local product recalls) wasn’t printed nor did the “journalist” who wrote the piece look up all of the recalled products to see where they came from—didn’t even look them up! The “journalist” didn’t bother running any statistical analysis either—could the total number of imported products be more than 22% higher than the previous years thus having recalls as a percentage of imports going down. Nope none of this was done.Now, I don’t know about the % of recalls in GB. And frankly I don’t care. And two of the three people who read my blog don’t care either (I know because I called my parents to ask). But if you have a “journalist” making claims and speaking as a “expert” then they should be required to back it up—hell, just do a little research before you go to press. Is that too much to ask?What’s the point of the article? Well, since unions are quoted, you can guess that it’s about keeping low-wage labor-intensive jobs at home (toy and toothpaste manufacturing specifically). Great idea. And since no research was done to either support or prove otherwise you know that the general public will read just what the unions and "journalist" want them to read: “22% increase in recalls from China.”