Summer is not an easy time for journalists. Almost everywhere, except in Malta, political stories become scarce. Pompous politicians jet off to their holidays and relieve us of the bombastic rhetoric that makes them think they are the real masters of the universe. So media editors have my full sympathy in their search for good stories.
The summer of 2015 provided the world media with a story that requires no resolution or thought – just outrage. Walter Palmer, a 55-year-old dentist from Minneapolis, acted like a perfect jerk and lured a lion out of his protected reserve in Zimbabwe and shot him for a trophy. To me, as a committed anti-hunting person, this act was reprehensible. But did it merit the media coverage it got internationally?
Practically at the same time that the story of Cecil the Lion was splashed across most world media, an important report was published in the UK about new end-of-life care rules that are being introduced in the UK after being approved by the National Institute of Health Care Excellence.
Up to 2014, medical staff in the UK followed the Liverpool Care Pathway guidelines on how to deal with terminally ill patients nearing the end of their lives. These guidelines were axed ‘after fears grew that patients were being starved and left to suck on sponges for a drop of water’. The guidelines were replaced by new ones that according to some experts are even worse than the previous ones.
Patrick Pullicino, a clinical neuroscientist at the University of Kent, lambasted the new Nice guidelines as being inhumane and speeding the death of helpless old people unnecessarily. He recommends “a return to ordinary compassionate care”.
“I think that ordinary compassionate care is better than poor pathway care, and the pathways have nothing to add really over good compassionate care,” he said.
Put simply, Prof. Pullicino unmasked the hypocrisy of medical bureaucrats and their political masters who try to resolve real problems of overcrowding in UK hospitals by speeding up the death of thousands of helpless old people. Did the media give much importance to this moral dilemma that is troubling not just the UK but also other countries that do not have a sufficient medical infrastructure to care for their ageing populations?
It is an undeniable truth that a free media is an essential element of a society
The answer is simply: not really. Such stories are not the stuff that interests most people and therefore the media chooses to ignore them. Some journalists believe that alleged stories of sleaze by politicians and their cronies are far more interesting to the average reader than complex social problems that are troubling our society and that warrant media attention.
The story about Cecil the Lion can be covered by any idiot because it requires zero resolution. But a story about how older people are left to rot on their deathbeds, or how thousands of people and children are losing their lives in the Mediterranean in search of a better life, or how millions of young people struggle with unemployment in Europe is too demanding for some journalists.
Most of the media soaked in their own biases have lost the capacity for critical thinking. As the US journalist Amy Otto says: “Sadly, many in our society live a great story that we can all be against and say ‘that’s bad’ and have to do absolutely nothing about it.”
The run-up to the US presidential election is another example of why so many people are losing faith in politics and politicians. The unadulterated nonsense spoken by Donald Trump to win over the support of the conservative electorate is pure attention-grabbing lark that has little connection with the most serious issues being faced by the US. But the media love it.
The Huffington Post has moved coverage of the presidential campaign of Trump to its entertainment section from its politics section. Sadly some people are simply fascinated by the pure garbage that comes out of the mouth of certain politicians who bully anyone they dislike and often act like Rottweilers who are not satisfied until they see their victims suffer.
The media remains one of the most unregulated industries in the world. But when they stop reporting and discussing what is really important for people’s lives, they lose their credibility. It is an undeniable truth that a free media is an essential element of a society. The real question that needs to be asked is: how free is the media from its own self-inflicted biases?’
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com