Tuesday 20 January 2015

If I were queen for a day (off-topic)

The Guardian has a section where they let contributors speculate on what they would do if they were king or queen for a day. I like this idea, but I’m not important enough to write for the Guardian so I’m gonna copy them in this corner on my own.

If I were queen for a day, I would seize hegemonic control of all major media outlets. I’d make quite an exceedingly unpopular queen, especially seeing the recent hubbub concerning censorship and free speech for journalism, and the importance of tackling stories and events from multiple perspectives. But the reason I’d take such a draconian and maternalistic measure is because I feel that this is not done enough.

So this is how it’d work. I’d have 24-hour rolling news coverage on the main terrestrial TV channels, probably categorised under Societal, Economic, Political and Environmental/Scientific. As the day’s global events panned out, some algorithmic brainbox would work out, taking into account a variety of factors, which events across the world (and beyond?) are most newsworthy. These factors would include things like body count, amounts of people displaced, modification to the global environment, tax evaded, censorship, agricultural and industrial degradation, investment in commodities, social upheaval, importance to scientific and technological advancement etc. Basically anything that has an effect on our humble little world. And the mathemagician would take all of these things and allocate airtime proportionally to the events and stories as they unfold, correlated to primetime viewership. Things she would overlook in the selection process would be notoriety of individuals, language, creed and religion, national boundaries and proximity. These would only be brought up as content if they were vital to the stories themselves, and not be used as influences on airtime allocation. Radio and newspapers would be subject to a similar fate, but I would leave channels such as Yesterday, BBC4, Film4, NatGeo untouched. There’s only so much global famine, warfare, environmental annihilation, political wheeler-dealing, corruption and inequality one can take in a day without a bit of creative light relief, or Michael Portillo. Plus I hardly want to be a despot.

Here’s the reason. Right now, the top story on my “Trending” majig on Facebook is “Jessie J: Musician performs her single ‘Big Bang’ on ‘The Graham Norton Show’ with her mouth closed”. I’m pretty out of touch but I think trending means news that is currently popular. If this is the sort of news that the average UK netizen (who represents the average UK citizen) deems shareable or essential to human existence, excuse me while I go and weep. I don’t know if I blame them or the outlets that propagate this kind of bull: on the one hand, the outlets write what sells, on the other, people read what they’re given. Chicken or egg?

Well, egg I think. We can no longer feign embryo-like powerlessness as an excuse for our national ignorance. With the internet, we can effortlessly find out from a plethora of sources and accounts exactly what is happening on our planet, when and where. We can’t lay the blame on mum and dad for only buying the Daily Mail, or saying that ITV News at 6 is the only news delivery service for the sedentary. But, it seems too many people are too lazy to explore elsewhere, and in this age of explosive globalisation, hi-tech weaponry, and the very uncertainty of our environment’s continuance, we need movement, we need large-scale action. We need to give our media a colossal makeover. For one day at least; at least.

This, I naïvely hope, would open our minds, and most importantly our youngest generations’ minds, to our worldly insignificance and need to co-operate internationally. Obviously my one day of mass media requisition would only do a good job of pissing people off and making you all feel helpless whilst conglomerates financially sedate our leaders and eat up the people’s share. But it could be the start of a new media era. When we start to realise that the news we’re used to is highly discriminatory and narrow, and when the true suffering is given more prominence in our daily lives, we may reconsider our voting patterns, preferred charities (or lack thereof), consumer habits and even personal ambitions. And I believe this will germinate the seed for solid, worldwide salvation.


Oh, and my final decree would be to do away with the monarchy. But that’s another story.

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