An Open Letter to Roger Alton

Dear Roger Alton,

I saw the following posted on the Medialens messageboard:

“Dear [Name withheld]
I assume you have this stuff from medialens. It does seem clear, and forgive me if wrong, that you actually don't read our paper. Our coverage of the political, economic and environmental issues around climate change has been immense, balanced, and thorough. It is of course none of my business, but I don't think you should send out emails like this just because Medialens tells you to.
Best wishes
Roger”

Well I can’t speak for “Name withheld”, but I can for myself.

Firstly, no, I don’t read the paper in the traditional sense. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m just not interested in products or fashion or celebrities or film reviews. I’m interested in news and comment, and that’s all available online, your paper included. And of course unlike with the hardcopy there’s loads of other interactive civvies out there picking through it all, and tipping each other off. All without any features on Toyotas, Kate Moss or Big Brother. In my position, why on earth would I want to buy or read the paper itself?

Secondly, you describe your coverage of climate change as immense and balanced, but surely that leaves the most important question unanswered: What’s the net effect of your output? Does the overall influence of The Observer’s environmental warnings actually outweigh the effects of its promotion of 4x4’s and air travel? After reading a copy, is one more likely or less likely to buy a new car? More likely to join Greenpeace or more likely to join the mile high club? Surely it must be the adverts that win the day. No corporation would pay you good money to come off worse in the public mind. What sane business would line the pockets of company that was striving to rein-in their output?

There once was a billboard advert in a Viz cartoon which read, “SMOKE TABS”. Beneath, in smaller case it read, “H.M Government warning: Don’t smoke tabs”. The Observer, Independent, and Guardian environmental stance seems much the same: A huge banner headline reading, “INCREASE CONSUMPTION!” over a much smaller “Over-consumption is killing us”

For that’s what it’s come to. The Siberian permafrost is melting. Human survival depends upon us sharply decreasing our use of fossil fuels. We can’t afford any more cars, we can’t even afford the ones we’ve got. The last thing any concerned party should do is help to promote them. And here’s the Orwell, I only know this because I read it in the bleeding Observer and Independent and Guardian!

You can see why it looks like madness to so many of us. It really doesn’t matter how good your coverage of climate change is when at the same time you’re obliged to ensure it doesn’t outweigh the effect of adverts for the very products causing the crisis. I know it’s not intentional, but it’s still a cruel trick. Getting affluent liberals to frown at melting icecaps on one page, then drool over the causes of melting icecaps on the next. Even for those who don’t buy the products the effect is fogging. The mere existence of such adverts waters down the urgency of the situation, normalises the madness. I mean, how real can the dangers of climate change actually be when the ‘liberal’ press still push cars and air travel? As with cigarettes, as long as such things are given the legitimacy of advertising it’s hard to take the threat seriously.

If the net effect of reading The Observer is to make one less sensitive to environmental problems then this sort of coverage is worse than none at all. If climate change articles are just another way to get people to fly then it would be better not to bother. In a nutshell, lose the cars or stop pretending to care.

Finally, I don’t send letters to journalists because Medialens tell me to. I do it when they point out contradictions that trouble me. Huge glaring holes in the media worldview, ones that help maintain this madness. Not that it’s my business, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but do you ever actually read Medialens alerts? They’re enough to make you scream. They enough to drive some members of the general public to actually take some journalists to task. Surely that’s better than a passive audience? News output is chronically skewed by corporate interests, and corporate lobbying. Isn’t it good for democracy that everyday folk can now question journalists? You have the right to challenge them, why shouldn’t we?

All the best,

Martin.

An Open Letter To Howard Jacobson

I’m writing regarding your ‘red top heart’ article in the Independent. There’s a great deal I take issue with, but I’ll stick to one question: Of all the bombings that have occurred since 911 why did this particular one anger you so profoundly?

As I write I hear that six-hundred and forty petrified Iraqi civilians were crushed to death this morning alone. Ten times the amount lost in London. What does that do to your heart complaint? There were no suicide bombs in Iraq before we invaded. Now there’s one a day. Your own Prime Minister lied to you to bring this situation about. Shall I call A&E?

You were disgusted because a “well-educated Muslim family speaking on the radio from Pakistan” weren’t especially appalled at the London bombings. But how could any informed person, not directly affected by the London bombings, feel any different? If you reside in Pakistan, and you know what was done to Falluja, how could you possibly be mortified by the London bombs?

You despair of British Muslims who object to increased stop and search: “So who else should they be searching, you morons” and even suggest that “when bearded novelists of a certain age begin planting bombs all over London” you will “willingly, gleefully, gratefully submit to being searched every time you leave the house”

I doubt it. I bet you’d scream blue murder, and quite right too. But more importantly, why choose this bizarre scenario? If you want to make a fitting parallel with Muslim indignation why leapfrog over the obvious: Perle, Rumsfeld, and Sharon are global terrorists. They’re also Jewish, and so are you. Would you like to be put in the box with them? Shall I judge you by their perverse standards, until you can prove otherwise? Can you imagine the outcry if perfectly innocent British Jews were habitually hassled in connection with international war crimes? “What the hell’s that got to do with us!?”

And of course the answer is nothing. Muslim Joe and Jewish Joanna have no more to do with this, no more say in this than you or me. Most of London is dark-skinned and wearing a day-pack. Should we all be searched? And look who’s in charge of racial profiling. People who execute a South American, because they think he’s an Arab, on account of his ‘Mongolian eyes’. Think yourself lucky it’s not bearded novelists they’re after. Shaving wouldn’t save you.

I’ve tried to think of reasons why these other killings don’t affect your heart condition so badly but I can’t find any nice ones. It might just be self-installed Little England blinkers. You watch cricket and talk literature while our hell is meted out on other peoples, then fly screaming from your armchair as soon as the inevitable, and widely predicted, blow-back occurs.

However my suspicions are rather more grim. I suspect that you have long decided who it is that causes the problems in this world; who are life’s civilising influence and who are its barbarians. Put me straight if I’m wrong, but I suspect a good deal of your anger comes from not being able to articulate these beliefs. Like many others, I think you’d like to shout it from the rafters:

“It’s the Arabs! It’s the bloody Arabs!!! Why are we even talking about anything else!?!”

But that would endanger your column at The Independent. But more importantly, it really doesn’t scan, and it certainly won’t stop the slaughter. That’s the reason so many of us refuse to end the condemnation at the London bombers. Because we want this to madness to stop, all of it. Every disaster the stop the war movement predicted concerning this ridiculous ‘war on terror’ has come true, right down to the bombings coming home. We were warned, but our leaders pushed ahead.

Like yourself, I try not to get angry. It’s never constructive. But when I do lapse at least it’s because of contradictions outside my head. My Prime Minister is war criminal, but I have to watch the media present him as a statesman. We went to war because of vacuous lies about WMD, yet when none were found the objectives were simply changed, and the media merrily trotted out the new lies. I have to turn the TV off sometimes too.

On the other hand, one way or another, you have to maintain these contradictions within your own head. The concept of civilised England, with it’s “ancient wisdom” is trying to live alongside the reality of a state still addicted to the material benefits of treating other peoples as serfs. Horror and indignation at the slaughter of innocent Britons has to share headspace with indifference to our own far greater slaughter abroad. No wonder you go ballistic when reality strikes.

I wouldn’t want all that rattling away in my head. For the sake of your heart, and a lot besides, you could do with sorting these issues out.

Best wishes,

MJ

Click on link below for original article