Monthly column on the arts

A strange Easter in our corner of East Hampshire, as I write. We live on the edge of a small village through which 19 footpaths and bridleways pass. All are now sealed off, their entrances barricaded with foot-and-mouth notices.

The Government insists that the countryside isn't closed, but that demands an odd definition of 'closed' even in areas like ours that have escaped the disease so far. Not far away, one village reported an early case, which proved a false alarm. Since then Hampshire has been remarkably untouched by the tragedy - not just of the wholesale slaughter and of farmers facing ruin, but of the long-term implications for rural economies like that of the Lake District and the West Country, which may never recover. Certain breeds of sheep may be wiped out, for example. Uplands previously grazed bare may be covered in bracken thickets in a matter of a year or two. Farms unable to survive might become anything from golf courses to camping sites depending on local circumstances.

One of the abiding images of my childhood is the newspaper pictures of burning carcasses and our local Cheshire farms besieged behind disinfectant-soaked straw barricades. You would have thought that science would have come up with a solution, that foot-and-mouth would be eradicable like smallpox. Yet it's back, and reaching towards the Scottish lowlands as I write.

Kilroy & Co

One of the characteristics of times like these is how we receive information and develop our view of events. For most of us, including rural dwellers like myself, almost all our information comes from the media. We hear explanations, arguments and news reports and from those we assemble what seems to be a fairly objective knowledge of the situation. We discuss this knowledge knowledgeably with other people: why vaccination is/is not a viable option, the good/bad handling of the crisis by the Government, and what sacrifice we should expect farmers with healthy animals to make to stop the advance of the disease. Whether it's a farming epidemic, the World Cup or the technicalities of Florida voting booths, the media have a habit of making experts of us all. How many of us had heard of MAFF before this spring?

Yet the media are notoriously educators. Facts are facts - but when the media presents them to us, they inevitably interpret them. It's usually not intentional, it's just the way the media works. Often it's down to physical realities. That clip you saw of a group of angry farmers arguing with a Government spokesman - where was the camera located? Nine times out of ten, scenes of confrontation are shot from behind the people who are being argued with. It's practical: the cameras are less likely to be damaged and you can see the demonstrators. But that automatically means that the Government spokesperson is seen as a pair of broad shoulders confronted by a group of angry, shouting faces.

Think of day-time TV - Kilroy, Richard and Judy, Esther Rantzen and the rest. When are issues really discussed on such programmes? Occasionally, no doubt. But mostly the floor is given to extroverts with colourful characters and an ability to communicate to a camera audience; sometimes merely to the person with the loudest voice who is willing to override other people in debate.

Somebody who knows the subject well and has years of experience of what is being discussed can often be marginalised or unheard, simply because he or she projects themselves poorly on TV.

Basic training

There's a lot to be learned from such matters. For example, Christians who have the opportunity to argue a case in the media had better give some of their preparation time to watching carefully exactly how media arguments succeed. That's basic training for politicians and trade union officials and should be for Christians who find themselves in the media, too.

But all of us, I think, need to ask ourselves: How have we reached the conclusions we have reached? Have we taken all our information from one source - or have we evaluated a variety of media (and other) views? Have we looked hard not only at what we are told, but at how it is told to us? Have we treated the media as objective - or tried to preserve a proper scepticism when we listen and watch?

The present epidemic is only one of many situations where it's dangerously easy to think ourselves well-briefed when we have actually been lobbied unawares by one side in the debate. Surely Christians should go that extra mile, so that we understand at least the landscape of such issues; so that even if we aren't expert in the details, we can listen to even the most compelling argument knowing that there is more than one way of looking at things.

A cull to understanding

Kilroy & Co

Basic training

David Porter

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