Btn: Episode 6 Transcript 15/3/11
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BtN: Episode 6 Transcript 15/3/11 On this week's Behind the News: We look at why the price of petrol is heading up. The business behind show business why one man's bad behaviour matters. And how smart is a man's best friend? We put it to the test Hi I'm Nathan Bazley. Welcome to Behind the News. Also on the show today, Tash gets her skates on and meets some kids who want to be ice hockey world champions. But before all that let's have a look at the latest on the terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan last week. The Wire INTRO: Japan is facing one of the biggest disasters to ever hit the area after a massive earthquake struck off the east coast on Friday afternoon. The quake itself was 8000 times more powerful than the one that hit Christchurch a fortnight ago and it shook buildings with violent force. But the biggest devastation was yet to come. A huge tsunami crashed across the coast two hours later, sweeping across whole cities, airports and farms in minutes. The wave was 10metres high in some places and travelled towards Japan at 800km/hr. Locals had little chance of escape. The quake also caused an emergency at a nuclear power plant when the cooling systems failed and the reactor heated up to dangerous levels. The next day it exploded creating fears of a radiation leak. 1 Rescue crews have been sifting through the huge areas of destruction, trying to find any survivors. But with tens of thousands still reported missing this disaster could turn out to be one of the deadliest modern-day Japan has ever faced. Petrol Prices Reporter: Natasha Thiele INTRO: If you parents drive a car you've probably heard them talk about petrol prices which are constantly changing. At the moment petrol's the highest it's been in around two-and-a-half years and many people aren't happy. So why is petrol so expensive right now? NATASHA THIELE, REPORTER: Buying fuel is one of the biggest costs for people who own a car. We need to fill up to get to places like school or work. REPORTER: But at the moment, the cost of petrol is going up and up! Unleaded fuel recently hit around the dollar fifty mark. Many drivers think that's overpriced already! But some experts reckon it could go up by even more over the next four weeks. So why are the prices going up? For the answer let's head overseas. We've been telling you about the political problems in countries like Egypt and Libya in the Middle East. There's been a lot of protesting going on, because people have been unhappy with the way their country's being run. Most of the world's oil reserves are in the Middle East and millions of barrels of oil are produced in the region every day. 2 When there's instability in oil-producing countries, it makes the market a little nervous. That means the price of oil goes up, because investors are worried about there being not enough oil to go around, so it's all about 'supply and demand'. Expensive petrol doesn't just hit the pockets of drivers. It can impact other parts of our economy too. If people are spending more money on petrol, retailers suffer because we're not spending as much at the shops. Then there are the delivery trucks that need to take goods like fruit and veg to the retailers, so we could see a jump in the price of food. So what can people do about high petrol prices? In the past, drivers have protested when they felt the petrol companies and governments were taking too much profit. In Europe truckies even blocked fuel depots so the petrol companies couldn't deliver. It was controversial at the time because it caused chaos, with drivers panic buying at petrol stations. But it succeeded in demonstrating that people would be prepared to fight if they felt they were being ripped off. But there are less radical ways to cope with the high cost of petrol by simply using less of it! You can do things like walk to school, use a bike or take public transport. Think twice about using the air-conditioner because that eats up petrol too. And you can make sure you fill up your car on cheap petrol days. You see, petrol prices in cities across the country are constantly changing. This is what's called a 'weekly fuel cycle'. You can find out what the cheapest day is to fill-up in your state. It used to be on Wednesday, but now it's at the end of the week in most places. 3 Buying fuel on a cheap day and in a cheap area could save you as much as 20-cents a litre. It's doesn't sound like much, but when you multiply it by the amount of petrol you go through in a year, it soon adds up. Tash has the story. Poll Results Well last week it was the price of milk that was getting everyone hot under the collar. Supermarkets are selling it really cheap and some people are worried that it could mean less money for the dairy industry. In our poll we asked you if you'd buy cheap supermarket milk. And you were split pretty much down the middle. 52 per cent said yes you would buy it and 48 percent said no. TV Text Reporter: Kirsty Bennett INTRO: Now, imagine trying to watch BtN without being able to hear what's being said. It would be really hard to make sense of what was going on. That's why many TV programs also come with closed captions so that deaf or hearing impaired people can read the words as they're written on the screen. But lately there's been some criticism that the service isn't as good as it used to be. Kirsty looks into it. KIRSTY BENNETT, REPORTER: Imagine turning on your TV and trying to unravel this! NEWS REPORTER: As consular - sounds lors, are provided. This is the first of many Darbs. 40 experts boarded. Dashes. Nice to be back. 4 REPORTER: You'd have no idea what they're saying but unfortunately that's how it can come across at times for the deaf or hearing impaired. It's compulsory for closed captions like these to be used in prime-time television programs and all news and current affairs. But recently there's been some criticism that the quality of the captions is getting worse. Before we get into why let's look at how captioning works. They use a special type of speed writing called stenography. They can type more than 200 words per minute, which is faster than most people can speak! And they need an accuracy rate of at least 98 per cent. It's a technique that's been around for a long time. Stenographers have been used in courts for years to record what's going on in a case and there's no room for error there! REPORTER: They use a special keyboard called a stenograph machine. It's different to a keyboard you'd have at home that has each letter on an individual key. Instead they use the sounds of words. So this is the start of a word, the end of a word, the vowels and numbers. They use a combination of the keys to make the sounds of the words. So if you type out a sentence like "the cat sat on the mat" it would come out like this. So "the" is T and "mat" is actually PHAT. Sounds confusing but stenographers have learned to understand this unusual language in the same way that most kids would now know what LOL means. The same speedy technique is used in live TV to make captions. That's Jim's job. He's about to start his shift writing everything that is said on ABC News 24. JIM, STENOCAPTIONER: So I'll take the headphones now and listen to what's being said and write it on the machine. REPORTER: The tricky part for Jim is that during live TV he doesn't have time to go back to correct any errors. Not that he makes many, these guys are highly skilled. But remember some of those weird sentences we saw earlier? Many of those mistakes weren't made by a person but a computer. Some captioning companies have started using voice recognition software on live TV. And that's where some of the more unusual captions have been creeping in. A computer is programmed to convert the sound into words that are turned into captions. The problem is, it's not as accurate or as fast as using a stenographer. The computer sometimes has trouble understanding accents, or unusual names so if it doesn't recognise a word or a place name it'll make a guess, which can often be nonsense. 5 So, while there are rules about when TV companies have to provide captions, there aren't any strict ones on quality but that could change if deaf or the hearing impaired, continue to make their voices heard. Presenter: Let's stay with the subject of language and grammar with our next quiz. Quiz 1 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia? Fly Buzz Phonics Answer: Buzz Onomatopoeia means a word that imitates the sound it makes like buzz, click, or thud! All right, moving on.