…with context?
Not much stops me in my tracks these days when it
comes to the ongoing global self-harm of modern human existence but some stuff
still does. Not necessarily the big things.
Just before I set the radio to search for something
decent to listen to on Monday morning I caught a snippet of the BBC morning
programme and a rather belated report about the dreadful problems in Iraq and the
violent, deadly protests currently accompanying that weary country’s troubles.
But that wasn’t what left me gaping like a fish on a
bank.
Both the journalist reporting the disruption and the
presenter soliciting the brief news clip had THAT tone. The one many of us came
to know and loath when John Humphrys filled that slot for endless years and
which we hoped had walked out the door with him. that weary – tut tut tut – how
else can you expect foreigners to behave - tone.
Often I second guess myself on these reactions. I
try to tell myself not to let my disgust at the decades of time the BBC has had
to get its house in order in terms of representing places other than London,
representing people other than middle class white people and coming up to date
with style and content for the 21st century when they are funded by
almost everyone in the UK. Not me. As you know, I’ve not had TV since last
century.
And then it came. The confirmation that what I’d
heard was not a mistake.
I know it’s difficult in a world where people are
bombarded through one screen or another with an unbearable volume of ‘news’
which can one minute be about who had sex with whom on TV to children dying in
un-seaworthy migrant boats to what colour you should be wearing this autumn to
political corruption and human/planetary devastation - all mixed up like news pigs’
swill.
But – if like me – you are one of the non-people. I.e.
you don’t exist in the world of social media you have time for context. And
trust me – when you have that it feels like a curse.
So – if like me you still do context – when the next
couple of lines came – and they were -
“so much corruption and violence” (in that tut tut
voice)
And
“…the failure of [Iraqi] politicians to rebuild…”
You will have been as flabbergasted as I was. Because your first thought – and this context was
not presented – will have been – who wrecked Iraq in the first place?
No smug, tut-tutty tone for Britain’s huge part in the
mess, the UK’s illegal (formally declared) invasion.
The only parallel I could think of is the way the
BBC currently reports on the rise in measles, the fall in the uptake of
vaccines and the fact that the UK has lost its measles-free status in the wake
of the hysteria and false information over vaccines which those in the health
service have been unable to reverse since it began with Wakefield in the 1990s.
What is not mentioned in these ‘reports’ which focus
on the bogus information on social media, is that the BBC were one of the first
credible news organisations to promote Wakefield’s views giving that lone,
discredited individual equal weight in many, many, many interviews – against
almost every credible health professional in the service entirely opposed to
him. But the BBC made it seem like a 50/50 debate. The huge damage done then is
not mentioned. It’s as if it’s just too convenient to suggest this is a new phenomenon
started by social media.
Context is everything and – occasionally – a little
honest memory is also helpful.
*
And, swerving off the greasy highway and avoiding
the horrific political pile-up remember – tomorrow is the book launch party.
