Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 21 March 2016 issue)

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or did some Australian journalists get arrested?
Not Again?

Two Australian TV journalists from the investigative documentary series Four Corners were arrested in Sarawak when they tried to approach and question our prime minister. They were eventually released and deported.

I like to think that I know a bit about film and TV production and I believe that Four Corners is one of the best investigative documentary series anywhere because of its production style. It is an old-school production without the annoyingly unconvincing dramatic reconstructions or pointless faux-tension musical montage breaks that now blight British documentaries and make them so frustratingly dull. Instead, Four Corners is delivered in an old-fashioned style with wall-to-wall soberly conducted interviews and investigation.

As a fan of the sport of cycling, I watched Four Corners when it was among the first to expose the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. Cycling is a popular sport in Australia and one of Armstrong’s many cheating episodes involved a race in Australia. Armstrong was a liar, cheat and bully who created a sophisticated doping system to ensure for himself victories, fame and fortune. He “won” an extraordinary seven Tours de France but during the gruelling three-week races, he and his entire team basically changed their blood several times so that they could achieve greater blood oxygen levels than their exhausted opponents. Many, perhaps most, of his opponents were also doping but Armstrong’s system was on an altogether greater level of thoroughness. Even today, there are people who think that Armstrong should be applauded for cheating so brilliantly.

Throughout the 1990s, cycling was dominated by cheats and Armstrong was the king, protected by the cycling authorities (who he had essentially bribed), the corporate muscle of big businesses such as Nike and others who did not want to look too closely at their cash-making machine, and an aura of saintliness because he was a cancer survivor. Armstrong was making himself and a lot of other people very rich and the sport of cycling saw no profit to be gained in investigating or exposing any alleged cheating, and it looked like nothing would ever change. But finally, it all came crashing down around Armstrong, partly because of an FBI investigation that was suddenly shut down but not before it got the ball rolling, and then Four Corners came along to help give the Armstrong myth the killing blow. I cling onto the story of the downfall of Lance Armstrong and the exposing of mass doping as a message of hope because it is one of the few examples of deeply ingrained systemic corruption being overturned by a combination of government agencies, individuals and journalism. First cycling and now possibly Fifa?

Along with the protection from corporations and the authorities, Armstrong’s greatest shield was his amazing ability to lie convincingly. He destroyed the lives of his accusers as he told lies that most onlookers found utterly believable. His standard theme was that his accusers were jealous of his success, but it turned out that Armstrong was jealous of them. After the scandal broke, and when we knew for certain that everything Armstrong had said was a lie, I watched a fascinating documentary that looked at how he lied and one of the best tell-tale signs was the use of the word “if” when starting one of his defences. It is not an absolute science but if you start your defence with if, then it is possible that you either thought about doing it or you actually did it. For instance, as Armstrong said frequently, if he had cheated then how come he passed 500 tests? It turns out that he was not tested 500 times, that his doping was too sophisticated for early tests, and that he had a system in place to make sure that he would always pass the tests that were not nearly as scientifically sophisticated as people had assumed. And he knew he had failed one crucial test, but had managed to essentially bribe his way out of it.

Other journalists and publications had broken the Lance Armstrong story before Four Corners got involved but Four Corners has a skill at storytelling in a sober and engaging manner so that a complex tale can become easily understandable.

Dear Kam,
My question is simple. Er, The Malaysian Insider closed down?
Outsider

Like many people, I was absolutely stunned by the news that The Malaysian Insider was suddenly closing down. TMI had the same owners as this newspaper but I know nothing about the decision-making process. All I know is that it was closed down for financial reasons. I mourn the loss of TMI. My breakfast reading will never be the same again.

Dear Kam,
Is it my imagination or has something extraordinary just happened in Myanmar?
Hope

Myanmar has just elected its first civilian president in 53 years. Only time will tell if the democratising process will succeed there, but it is a heartening step even if Donald Trump could become the next US president. History would appear to be the story of an unceasing tug of war between liberalisation and reaction, but history also shows that right now is never the end of the story.

Reprinted with the kind permission of