Japan, eh? Well, everyone else seems to be talking about it, so I'll bore you a bit more. Be aware that there is a circular irony at play in this post, I've just realised...while advancing an argument about the media trying to find ways to put a local, British spin on the crisis, by focusing on the British press I am in fact putting a local, British spin on the crisis. Ah, the inner hypocrisy of the hack.
One slightly controversial thing to note: in a way, it's good that this has happened in Japan. I mean, if it was going to happen anywhere, Japan is one of the best-prepared places on earth. They've studied this shit, much of the infrastructure is already in place. They're also the world's third largest economy, so they're much better set up to deal with this than, say, any country in Africa. If this had gone down in a third-world country, the death toll would be into millions.
Still, in the British coverage, they're very keen to underline to us again and again why we should care. It's a massive news event, truly global stuff, so everyone wants to report on it. And christ, you'd think everyone would be interested to read about it, up to a point...but still, the press want to impress upon us repeatedly why it's so important for us to care here, all the way on the opposite side of the world. Never mind that man is created equal and we should care about tragedies everywhere...
There is a certain degree of the 'so what?' factor at play, with local newspapers in particular desperate to find some kind of local spin so they basically have an excuse to report on this massive piece of news. Scottish papers are always guilty of trying to 'put a kilt on' stories, and this is all well and good when it comes to things like the Aberdeenshire man who lives over there now, but yesterday in the Press and Journal was a bit grim...they led on the nuclear crisis by talking about how it's not going to affect livestock transport in the UK. Chernobyl affected that, but this one isn't going to - "we're not concerned", someone apparently said. Brilliant! We don't give a shit!
The bigger broadcast networks have made a clearer effort to show us why we should care; they don't go looking for a local man who's moved over there, they move a familiar face in so we can relate to it in some way. Jon Snow is currently in Japan, and I feel much closer to the idea of a nuclear reactor going into meltdown when he's driving away from it with a troubled look on his brow. It's similar to the BBC's coverage of the Libya uprising, most of which involved John Simpson crouching behind a hill. I can't really picture ordinary Libyans getting shot at, but John Simpson getting shot at - I'll tune in for that.
The whole Japan thing is a farce, though. It's blatantly all a massive cover-up. As if earthquakes, tidal waves, whirlpools and meltdowns all happen at the same time...this is obviously the work of Godzilla. See all those shots of people inside the buildings while they're swaying about? There's a giant monster outside shaking the place. The tidal waves were him emerging from the ocean. And if they were to zoom the shot of the exploding nuclear plants out just a bit further, you'd see the big guy lumbering along, breathing fire on shit. They just don't want us to know, because it would freak us out. The world will never find out, until he picks up Jon Snow's van and hurls it into the sea during a live broadcast on Channel Four News...
