Cc: The British(errs) and the Paper(rs)

[Frederick Noronha]

Nice one Tisha! Thanks for posting the link:

http://www.ndtv.com/news/blogs/london_i/cc_the_britisherrs_and_the_paperrs.php

Cc: The British(errs) and the Paper(rs)
By Tisha Srivastav, Monday November 23, 2009
Heard on the road in London. What will the wailers at Copenhagen sound like?
bauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.bauuuuuuuuuuuuu .(I.e. business as usual)

Here in UK, environment and even more specifically CC or climate
change is a beat that is popping its head through and through the
dailies. In a way that would madden the heart of every self respecting
environmental posturer, engage the mind of the genuine researcher,
challenge the I'm-an-activist-but-they-don't-believe-me -nature lover
but do provide air space to the old fashioned environmental reporter.
Copenhagen is round the corner, Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' has made
it to the top of The Times 100 books of the decade and 2012 is showing
at the movies. Is that why? Most certainly maybe. But I'm not going
topical or empirical on this one. Just going to share a far more felt
sense as someone who is going through at least three of the newspapers
here, everyday for the last month. Just as a reader and this year as a
non-reporter.

First there's 3/4ths of a page dedicated to just the weather reports
of this not very humongous set of islands in 'The Guardian'. With only
the crossword to distract you from the weather help lines. Saturday in
'The Guardian' brings a four-sided supplement with columns around the
outdoors called Outside. There is usually a beautiful centre spread, a
photograph of some scenic natural space in the country. Flanked on
either side by pieces that offer a totally from-the-field perspective
of nature. On the left, a father taking his son to a more intense
surfing site in Cornwall. (Surfing, the real thing, remember!) And
somehow the piece, not a tourist on his first rush hyperbole thing but
a much maturer sense of deepening delight and learning by the sea. On
the right of the picture page, a simple one column long column called
Feather Report, on the bird spotting that week and the 5 Ws and 1 H,
done on it.

The flip side of the Outside pages teeming with smallish first person
pieces on gardening issues and is natural better debated by farmers,
with muddied hands themselves. Letters to the editor page raging with
climate change points of view. Not to mention, a weekly Country diary
from one of the smaller counties recalling its first flood, written
usually by a resident. And the Sunday mid spread dedicated sometimes
to far flung tourism in India is here on Autumn walking weekends at
home! These somehow still expected of the Guardian and a country that
hyper-celebrates its nature poets and waxes nostalgic on its last
great wildernesses.

What last great wilderness was a recent mocking piece?

Pictorial messaging abounds in small and big photos across many
newspapers. One theme in common- cc. Here the how to act on CO2
stories begin from the thick of it. People retrofitting homes frozen
in pictures while at it and regular columnists write dear diary pieces
- I will not use central heating or will I not? Chatty but open debate
follows.

A very compelling decade round up piece indicts the consumer classes
(I did wonder who feels left out) in its headline -THE DECADE WE JUST
LOOKED AWAY Philosophical yet topical, full of both events and ideas
that I'm sure made the locals gently squirm.

The Independent's Science Editor's piece on 'NOTES FROM ROBINSON
CRUSOE'S ISLAND - (414 miles off the coast of Chile is a place
untouched by man for four million years. Now it is in peril) -Never
mind the clichéd oversell. 4 pages of tramping delight and endangered
species follow.

I'm not even going to get into the Science beat or the archaeology
beat and the interesting range of phenomenon they focus on. That the
former delivers a near weekly magazine in the newspaper is evidence
enough. Investigations into river pollutions and the daily drill of
environ-nightmares of course but if there is one feature that stands
out - it is the dialogic strain of discovery and inventive Q&A
formats. But it is the consumer interest pages where I find most of
the subtle reeducation, most creatively handled.

A straightforward 200-word piece called TAKE IT FROM THE EXPERT
focuses on the experts you don't expect exist e.g. - The sustainable
fish specialist.

Or a simple quickie of a column called Hideously Diverse Britain where
a hurried lunch offers food for thought on what else - the diversity
in diversity. Since we're on lunch, I caught a great gripe piece by
the guy who wrote the London guidebook on restaurants and tracking how
far they source their food from .A sort of sustainability brownie
book.

Really, if there's one topic that the media's made big on discussion
here, it is this - how far is your food traveling? Fair trade or
homemade? Far away organic or chemical but closer sourcing? Who are we
hurting? The facts that these discussions have even begun are in big
part due to the media itself. And many of the writers, plain simple
food lovers who are I guess trying to draw and understand the full
circle of food politics. And it's role in environmental pollution
among other things in this heavily meat obsessed land. Of course all
the big newspapers are running CC campaigns (Look at 10:10 or Act on
CO2)

But the cumulative effect of all this on me, the visiting Indian is
this, in one form or another, point is being dinned from all
directions - climate change change climate we'd better change climate
change. And the papers seem to get it that the class consuming their
newspapers is the class to be engaged into a rethink.

Surfeit of it, less counterfeit?

The papers' constancy of effort in perspective, variety and freshness
and never far from a wake up call is newish for me here. Hogwash,
whitewash, atleast no washing their hands off the beat itself.

It makes me live in hope and less mistrust of how these issues can
come from fresh vantage points and tackle the seriousness of climate
change and it's very real reverb across India. In our dailies in daily
engaging ways which neither indulge the audience nor insult it.

Till then we can blabber on about the hypocritical west (which it is)
and be proud of the raddiwallah (which we have reason to be) while the
beat itself never escapes it's kutta-billi or ghaas-phoos-isms to
embrace multidisciplinary insights in tracking environmental change in
good ole complex India.

To begin with, how about a beat called H20?

P.S. Coming very soon, in British papers. An agony aunt column on
carbon karma. Obituaries of pets of the rich. A walking guide of
Europe sponsored by the London Tube. A review of the Dummies guide to
eco-DJing. And finally the climate change meeting is in - the joke no
one cracks. The generations who believed make hay till the sun don't
shine, need to cop in now.


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About Me
Tisha Srivastav
Tisha Srivastav is doing her full time masters in Global Media at
School of Oriental & African Studies. She is based in London.
--
Frederick Noronha :: +91-832-2409490
Writing, editing, alt.publishing, photography, journalism
ANOTHER GOA: http://tiny.cc/anothergoa