The Verb in a Title?

A welcoming introduction. 

My name is Martin Borg, a German investigative journalist. I presume some people are not familiar with the name, but it does not discourage me from representing some journalistic observation reviews for the “court” of public attention.

Before I start writing a journalistic piece, I have to figure out the subject of my writing. I chose to dedicate this article to a deeply intriguing happening, which I have never come across before. I will talk about a motorcycle journal, “Roll on”. I had to have two things before making it possible: 

  1. News hook;
  2. The reason why I am interested in the matter.

The reason for this was threefold:

– The launch of a new motorcycle journal right in the high point of the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems like almost everything is being closed or suspended, yet a new journal pops up. It just seemed weird to me…

– I was surprised by the verb in the title (I mean, ROLL ON). I haven’t seen journals with a verb in the title. Again, that also seemed to be odd. 

– The popular-science journal? I don’t remember publications in this industry in such a genre, so I decided to dig deeper. 

These three reasons prompted me to focus my attention on this particular subject. Further research intrigued me even more; I thought I would write the article you are reading now. 

What’s it like?

In a continuous study and monitoring of the motorcycle industry media space, as a journalist, I have always been searching for stimulating subjects so that my audience is not bored. It is easy to get bogged down in all sorts of mechanical formulas and numbers when you are in this kind of industry. The general audience is not interested in all that, and they don’t want to read the calculations and conclusions of someone who is tediously narrating his thoughts. That is why I have always searched for subjects that might entertain my audience and be useful at the same time.

At this point, I chose to stray away from my habitual form of writing because the given topic is unusual, from my standpoint. Try to imagine that amid the global financial crisis and pandemic, a group of enthusiasts is starting a popular science journal about motorcycles and aspires to succeed in the international media space. I have to admit it seemed to me utopian in the beginning because many publications that were present for a long time in the market are shutting down today. This unfortunate situation stems from three simple facts: 

  1. The lack of funding and unprofitability of maintaining the publication. And herewith Roll On, it is not only an electronic media but also print.
  2. Considerable funds. Obviously, you have to invest a lot of money to maintain this kind of journalism because the content is expensive today. Today, more simple communication forms, such as YouTube and other social media platforms, seem to have more impact. Only three people can run a YouTube channel (a cameraman and two journalists) and reach larger audiences.
  3. It costs much less to support three people and one video camera than it does to maintain a newspaper, for instance. 

These factors did not make much sense to me, and I believed that an initiative to create a publication was doomed to failure, and I started investigating the matter. In the middle of my research, that idea no longer seemed to be a bad option. 

The first finding was that the Research Institute for the Study of Human Behavior in Extreme Situations was behind the publication. Although this institute is a new one, it was developed on the scientific basis of three already functioning institutes that have been working since long. Therefore, it is hardly possible to refer to the Institute of Human Behavior Research as anything ‘new’ (except its title) as it’s scientific potential is time-honored. 

So I found out that the journal belongs to the institute and the question of funding was no longer relevant. It is self-evident that such a world-class institution should have its academic publications. The institute has one journal (from what I know), I would imagine that it is only the first step and there will be more in the future judging from their extensive research agenda:

1. Research activities involving human behavior in warfare, industrial accidents and disasters; 

2. Studies of human behavior that results in aviation crashes, traffic accidents, industrial and marine incidents and occurrences; 

3. Studies of the causes of railways-related disasters; 

4. Research of everyday activities of a human being as the main factor of emergencies;

5. Studies in the field of psychology correlated with the ‘psychology of stages’ and the main category, explicitly linked with the fatal consequences as catastrophes and other destructive events, including criminal cases (as part of committed crimes);

6. Methodology for averting fatal events and minimizing the impact of the human factor in terms of damages to society, environment, individuals and social relations;

7. Specialized investigations of accidents, within the framework of riding a vehicle such as a motorcycle which results in the death of citizens, athletes, or riders; 

8. Specialized psychological studies of extreme sports, including martial arts and fencing; 

9. Studies of human factor impact related to losses of companies down to bankruptcies; 

10. Research of risk factor as a scientific category

11. Approbation of particular methods to educate professionals whose activities are related to mandatory risk factors in their profession, such as military, police, pilots, sailors, extreme sports athletes, martial arts practitioners, fencers, bodyguards, travelers; 

12. Creation of special laboratory conditions to conduct interdisciplinary research; 

13. Organization of scientific conferences, seminars, symposia, etc., relevant to the research problems of institutes and their advanced training courses; 

14. Setting up experimental organizations to learn about the factors and phenomena that render risk and lead to non-controllable and irrational human behavior; 

15. Organization of scientific expeditions as a research model to study human behavior in extreme situations;

16. Studies of the consequences that affected survivors of disasters, extremes, wars and technogenic accidents; 

17. Studying the behavior of people that are in the extreme criminal environment, in diverse groups and criminal subcultures; 

18. Publication of journals, scientific bulletins, brochures, and other printed products for scientific, research, and popular purposes; 

19. Research of human factors in the handling of weapons such as edged weapons and firearms by the police and military units, as well as citizens in cases of extreme urgency and self-defense; 

20. Implementation of widespread educational activities within the global community to prevent and minimize human factor impact in the view of fatal and criminal consequences.

As a general rule, whenever I’m doing my job, I prefer to avoid trusting any third-party sources until I’ve spoken to someone directly involved in the matter. Finding something on the internet is one matter, but talking to a man face-to-face is different. It was not easy to come across any scientist or journalist involved in this research institute and journalist. But I ended up finding a person associated with the institute and journal through my contacts from the US and I was able to discuss it with him. Here is what I learned after having spoken to him. 

1.     There are sound professional and scholarly credentials behind the journal, which is associated with reputable motorcycle schools in the USA.

2.    At the moment, they are actively working with people from all over Europe, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the US to make the journal one of the industry’s tops, as they claim.

3.      My collaborator told me they expect the professional world of motorcycling to cooperate actively with the publication. There are grounds to think so because they are working with leading figures of the industry already. I did not ask who the collaborators are and other details. It was a brief, unexpected phone talk; my friend rang me and said that a person related to the journal is right here and handed him the phone. Arguably I could have doubted that man as I didn’t know him at all, but I trust my friend who would never trick me. 

Why am I telling all this? I want you to follow my stream of thought. If my friend handed over the phone to this man, it must be worth it, and most likely, the information is accurate. 

4.  The next message conveyed to me was that the decision to make this journal of the popular-science genre was to make it understandable for broad audiences and people in the motorcycle area.

5. The journal does not cover racing, extreme rides on the track, but street riding, off-road riding, and using bikes in the global motorbike community outside of the track. 

6. I realized that if these people have been involved in motorcycling in some form for a long time, there will be no financing problem. It is a research institute journal and should not experience any difficulties common to other media these days. 

After speaking with that man, I felt encouraged. All my friends had negative thoughts, and they argued that sooner or later, everything will “migrate” to YouTube anyway, and the media would cease to exist entirely. I have witnessed fascinating nonsense—a reputed academic institution creating a journal dedicated to the motorcycling community. It is an unconventional choice, and clearly, this kind of journal should provide high-quality content. Indeed, people realize how competent academics and professional experts are in comparison with amateur individuals interested in the subject, just as an ordinary journalist or as a blogger. Besides, it has inspired a new perspective on the issue, since on YouTube (well, you learn that sooner or later) the content is owned by people who have nothing to do with the subject and give advice with no academic degrees or any status and deep knowledge of racing and engineering, in running a machine professionally.

People handing out advice are just people. In my opinion, this is another problem in the motorcycle industry—the number of views on all sorts of matters. Although ideas are so appealing and we are always supportive of a plurality of opinions, we should be careful and make sure those opinions are competent. Otherwise, it becomes absurd and the number of troubles related to motorcycling does not reduce.

It turns out that pursuing content for the sake of readership generates an information collapse regarding the motorcycling community in the media industry, which inevitably leads to negative consequences. That is why I was so interested because the journal’s content with an institute behind it would be at least very competent. I haven’t seen the editorial board, but I expect it to be respectable.  

Even in the US, most professionals believe a considerable number of motorcycle schools are training people inappropriately. This is another problem at present. And it isn’t a brand new thing. Let’s (even superficially) look into the literary niche. We will see that there are many books today dedicated to “how to ride” a bike, but there are none about “how to learn to ride” a motorcycle. I received a short documentary from the 70s about motorcycle riding tactics in the city from a colleague, suggesting that these problems (apart from the media ones) existed back in the 70s and are still unresolved. Perhaps, the rationale for this is that science had not interfered in any way with the motorcycle industry before. For example, airlines were obliged to engage and even employ experts, scientists to train pilots and set up training programs while riding a bike in the city was mostly sidestepped by science.

As it is known, science comes to a sport with personalities who provide a scientific approach rather than an experimental one based on their past experience. It seems to me that the introduction of such a journal into a motorcycling community signals the inflow of science into the industry. I haven’t seen a popular-scientific publication before that would cover an ‘off-track’ industry. 

Finally, I would like to say that the tendency, such as scientific attention towards motorcycle community speaks about:

1. The increasing popularity of motorcycling even in the financial world crisis;

2. Large volumes of data, available in the motorcycling industry, social networks, and YouTube;

3. People sharing their experiences instead of relying on scientific data;

4. Psychological part related to motorcycles remains in the dark.

I am encouraged to find out about this new journal (Roll On) and I hope my intuition will be right as usual.

M. Borg