5 ways being a journalist is a lot like being a smoker - and 1 way it isn't...

Journalism, like smoking, is an oddly addictive profession that isn't necessarily good for your personal health or the health of those around you. Often unsociable and these days associated with stereotypes of bad behaviour, is it a journalism ban that we most need to see in this country? 

Rebecca Megson lights up the similarities between smoking (which KILLS by the way kids) and journalism...

All the President's Men
- Journos pursuing lies at the heart
of 'democratic' government*

1) The cool and the beautiful do it on the big screen - making it look cool (Hoffman/Redford, journalistic truth-hunters extraordinaire in All the President's Men) and beautiful (a la the iconic smoker Mrs Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. Less pretty when's she's OD-ing later but that's off topic...)

2) The first time you try it (smoking/journalism) you can feel quite sick and disgusted by it...

3) ...but before you know it you have an insatiable hunger for the newsroom/next smoke. Your heart races with excitement/stress. The adrenalin is pumping over whether you'll get the story/get caught smoking by your neighbour ('who will tell your mum what you've been up to young lady'). There is a sense of survival.

Mrs Mia Wallace in
90s cult movie Pulp Fiction**

4) As a journalist/smoker you are something of a social pariah, especially amongst professions that mistrust you (TIP: don't go to a party predominantly filled with scientists and/or doctors and admit you are a smoker/journalist unless you are ready for the cold hard stare of 'Oh, well that certainly changes how comfortable I feel about talking to you').

5) There are particular types of smoking/journalism (aka weed/investigative) that will find you locking yourself in a darkened room for days at a time, rejecting friends and family, living off snack foods and paranoia. You vet anyone you speak to for trustworthiness and then (once they pass the test) reveal everything you've found about the latest conspiracy theory.

And one way it isn't....

1) Unlike tobacco, the very best journalism can be a force for good....

For example, CBS aired the first TV news segment alleging links between smoking and lung cancer in 1955 which revolutionised what we knew and thought about smoking//The Guardian broke the first news story into what would become the hacking scandal, revealing the dirtiest and most unwholesome side of journalism imaginable at that time.

And that is what makes journalism a worthwhile career to pursue (and why we shouldn't ban it!)


*All the president's men" by IMPAwards.com. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of All the President's Men (film) via Wikipedia
**Pulp Fiction cover" by The poster art can or could be obtained from Miramax Films.. Licensed under Fair use of copyrighted material in the context of Pulp Fiction via Wikipedia

Welcome to WHO and the global health tardis (yes, it really is bigger on the inside...)

So.  I'm in Geneva gearing up to attend the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA67) which kicks off here on Monday.  The what, I hear you say?  You're where?  Why do I care?

All good questions.  Basically I'm here as part of an event that aims to increase global health awareness and understanding. It has been organised by the World Health Communication Associates (WHCA) and I'll tell you a bit more about them in a mo.  I came last year and having caught the health bug (yes, I really did just say that....) I'm back again along with a fresh cohort of newly graduated international journalism students (some of whom are pictured in the top lefthand corner there at our first briefing this evening...).

How healthy you are, the decisions you take about your health or about the things you do that affect your health will be determined for the greater part by the communication and information you have about that topic.  Which makes it pretty important that there is good, trustworthy and accurate information available to you.  Right?

However we're all familiar with the challenges of getting good, trustworthy, accurate health information. The (mis)information about the links between the MMR injection and autism is one example of how what's communicated in the media affects the decision making of parents.  Or the current row about statins which has left people feeling pretty confused about what they should do and when/if they should take them.

Dizzying complexity

The WHCA believes that health literacy of a community - e.g. how much you know about health issues - directly relates to the health and wellbeing of the people in that community. The media in particular have a huge role to play in this of course. But here's the thing: Actually health is complicated.  For a start there are so many health issues and the complexity of the science underlying each of them is dizzying for any would-be journalist needing to get their 400 word copy out by deadline.  Copy that needs by it's very nature to be crystal clear and readily understood by the woman/man/child on the street.

Add into that the economics of health - staying alive and well is an expensive business at the individual and the national level - and the fact that disease doesn't pay any attention to the boundaries we draw between countries. Suddenly you start to see that health is an international, political and economic issue as well as a personal one.

There are 193 health ministers from around the world about to congregate here in Geneva.  They are going to get together in a room and decide what the worlds major health priorities are today and who is going to do what about them over the next 20 years. 

This is what the World Health Assembly does.  It is the decision making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), an arm of the United Nations.  It gathers government officials, policy-makers, non-government officials and medical professionals together in one time and place and provides leadership and direction for and with them in terms of global health. 

This means that what is discussed here over the next few days will, in no uncertain terms, have an impact on your life.  Which is pretty important I reckon - after all you've (probably) only got the one and it is a wild and precious thing.

My intention over the next few days is to blog and tweet about what's happening here and to take a deeper dive into some of the issues being discussed. I hope to throw some light on the workings of the #WHA67 and kick off some discussions on the rights and wrongs of health journalism as it stands today.  But for now.....I'm going to take a spoonful of some of the best medicine there is, sleep.  A demain.

And miles to go before I sleep - Review of Almost Heaven: Travels thought the Backwoods of America

I have been travelling across North America for the past month or so - down around the South and then up and out to the West.

Well. Imaginatively speaking I have. I've been reading Almost Heaven: Travels through the Backwoods of America by journalist Martin Fletcher.

As a child I was fascinated by the USA and absolutely desperate to live there.  I stumbled across some stories a while ago that I'd written in Primary School which I'd set in the States.  Upon re-reading them I found had no idea where the places I named actually were. To be honest I assumed I'd made them up but some quick googling showed my childhood geography of the USA to be accurate, if not a little obscure.

As an adult I've travelled to North America a few times. Despite fears that my childhood crush may have been misplaced my visits have never been anything but awesome and awe-inspiring.  Right now I'm too poor and too busy with my studies to even contemplate making any transatlantic journeys so a bit of armchair travelling with Fletcher seemed like a reasonable substitute.

As the title suggests Fletcher is captivated by the more obscure and geographically remote places in the US.  He tells of Appalachian snake handlers who believe they live or die in their handling of venomous snakes by the will of god; he hangs out with a Cajun fur trapper and visits an alligator farm in Louisiana.  He goes to Texarkana - a town that straddles the Texas-Arkansas border and therefore, amusingly, has to have two of everything - two mayors, two councils, two police forces, two fire services, two court systems...

He tells of American communities that I'd never heard of before such as the Gullahs in South Carolina - descendants of freed slaves who bought land just after the Civil War and are still singing songs that can be traced back to a village in Sierra Leone. He meets Melungeons, a community of people who may be descended from original 16th century Portuguese settlers and visits towns like Muenster in Texas where German is still the first language for many of the older inhabitants.

I think for any traveller there is a sense that once you've been to a place a part of you belongs to it; you have a sense of connection that comes from having walked the roads and spent time with the people there. I know this is how I feel about the USA and in some senses I guess I looked to the book to confirm my belief about the America I have experienced and loved.

And Fletcher doesn't disappoint.  He tells tales of America and Americans that I recognise, of people and places that are impressive in their ingenuity and their eccentricity.  He does not however refrain from also showing the less flattering side of American society.

Threaded throughout the book is commentary and discussion about racism. Fletcher visits 'The World's Only Ku Klux Klan museum' and 'Redneck Shop' in South Carolina. He finds that Greene County in Alabama is 'in practical terms, as segregated now as it was in the 1950s. Blacks and whites live side by side but seldom mix.'  He meets Clarence Bradley who was wrongfully arrested and tried for the rape of a white girl in 1980. Fletcher describes the affair as the closest thing to a 'legal lynching' and believes it 'reveals the darkness that still lurks behind the peaceful and pleasant facades of some small American towns'.

Fletcher ends his journey near as damn-it in Idaho which is the childhood home of one of my very best friends and a place I've visited on a couple of occasions.  I saved the chapter because I wanted to savour going back there in my mind. The Idaho I am most familiar with, that I would most call home-from-home is a place of hippies and off-griders, people who are independent spirits and Fletcher does deliver some of that in this chapter.

However what I always forget about Idaho is that it is also home to the Church of Jesus Christ Christian and its political arm the Aryan Nations.  This penultimate chapter then was not necessarily the comforting read I was hoping for.

Fletcher undertook his journey in 1997 which is on the one hand a long time ago.  Recently we've been reminded in the UK of the institutional racism inherent in our police system that was uncovered by the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993.  But I can remember 1997.  I can remember 1993. It all seems too recent for such out-dated and out-moded views to have persisted even then.

As perhaps all great journeys tend to do, Almost Heaven challenged my view of a place that I am fond of and feel connected to and reminded me that none of us, wherever we are in the world, can rest easy in the belief that bigotry is a thing of the past. Whilst at times the roads we travel may feel almost heaven, the truth is that we are, sadly, still very far from any kind of equitable Eden.

Confessions of a closet environmental fascist

In the process of my journalism training I too have stood next to higher-than-usual-water, in wellies, with a camera, discussing 'extreme weather'.

I can't say it's an official rite of passage.  It did however only take 35 minutes of standing out in the wind, rain, hail and slimy-almost-but-not-quite snow for me to develop a greater (if grudging) level of respect for all the journalists we see on the telly standing in flood water at the moment.

I've read a lot around the subject of climate change.  Historically because I used to be something of an environmental fascist.  More recently to back up the validity of our 'piece to camera' homework and today because of writing this blog.

What's clear to me (from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 'Climate Change  2013: The Physical Science Basis - Summary for Policymakers' document) is that the temperature of the earth is hotter now than it was in 1880 (~ 1° C), that the arctic ice is melting rather rapidly, sea levels are rising and that these things are having an impact on our climate.  Additionally these changes can be linked to the increase of C02 that we've been merrily pumping into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.

My reading also suggests that the future is a dark uncomfortable place, that we have slipped past our moment in time when we could've done anything to stop the inevitability of extreme weather as the norm by 2020, or the mass migration and environmental refugees this will create.  Top names in climate change science predict that conflict and war are on their way.

I checked in with my own mad scientist to get his view on the situation.  He cheerily agreed with the darkest assessment of the future and we had an interesting discussion about what would happen when bread reaches £10 per loaf.  It was dismal to say the least.

But the big question that isn't being answered for me, the thing I think we're missing here is this - what on earth (apart from stop buying houses in flood plains....) are we supposed to do about all of this?

In the not too distant past I used to be fundamentalist in my eco-beliefs.  I wouldn't buy something if I  couldn't reuse or recycle the container it came in.  I bought local, organic, fairtrade, seasonal.  I did not go into supermarkets anymore than I could reasonably help.  I ate a lot less meat.

As I look back at it now, it was a kind of mania, driven from the right place, a place of heart, of wanting to make a difference and make the world a better place.  It was nonetheless a mania.

It was also a glorious time in my life.  I lived in a transition town and was involved in environmental groups and activities. I was part of a community.  We worked hard and cared passionately about our campaigns but we also we worked together, we had fun, we made things happen - perhaps only at a small local level but it was a start, it was something.

I am something of a lapsed environmentalist since moving to Bristol.  I do the recycling but I confess I shop at Sainsbury's, watching my budget more carefully than the country of origin of the products I buy.

I feel a bit wearied by it all I guess.  In order to avoid the hopelessness and helplessness that I feel in the face of something as big as climate change I just get on with my daily life as best I can.  But I'm niggled by it.

I want the establishment to stop pushing out climate change deniers who are wonderfully distracting and cause us to focus on them rather than on asking awkward questions of our politicians about funding and future plans.  I want to know what I can do that helps today.  I want to know what I should be pushing Stephen Williams MP to be doing on my behalf.

And I believe that the media, our fourth estate, our establishment watchdog, ought to be better placed to provide that kind of public service.


'The uncertainty of our times is no reason to be certain about hopelessness.' (Vandana Shiva) 

Related links
http://www.ipcc.ch/
https://www.sustainablecrediton.org.uk/