Be mindful of the source of your news to make informed choices about your health.
If you’ve picked up this magazine and read this far, you probably like that what you learn in these pages can’t be found in the popular press. You probably also live in what we call a “free country” and support “free press.” But, let’s face it, these are ideas that exist somewhere on a continuum.
We typically consider freedoms in relation to the degree of control that governments exert over the lives of their citizens. But we must also consider the rights of anyone who may be affected when we express ourselves.
That’s one reason we have regulation and self-regulation of the media (for example, regarding privacy and libel). It’s not media regulation itself that’s bad, it’s regulation that serves the corporate sector more than people or planet that’s bad.
So, what do we make of the ex-head of the BBC newsroom, James Harding, walking away from the BBC to set up a new venture, Tortoise Media?
BBC News is arguably the most powerful news voice in the world, communicating to more people in more countries than any other. It deals with news as it breaks, it churns out news 24/7 through a host of channels, and the BBC World Service remains the channel of choice for many in the developing world.
Tortoise Media, the new and much slower-moving vehicle of Harding and his codirectors, funded by some deeply wealthy individuals and, increasingly, by more modest contributions via a Kickstarter campaign, is the diametric opposite. So much so, the kind of news Tortoise releases is called “slow news.”
You won’t find anything about the latest murders or celebrity outings. Tortoise’s award-winning journalists avoid dishing out news that attempts to satisfy our recently acquired habit for instant gratification. If you haven’t done so already, visit www.tortoisemedia.com and see what you think.
Just like slow food, I find the slow news pieces revitalizing. Deeper insights deliver more memorable, more powerful information about our precarious world.
I also like the idea of grassroots funding. It beats the current status quo in which industry-funded newspapers have the editorial power to splash news of Big Pharma’s latest dubious miracle cure for cancer on their front pages.
I do worry, however, that the people who could benefit most from seeing a more balanced view of the world with insights from Tortoise’s deeper-thinking journalists may not be up for paying the £50 or $50 it costs to get this broader perspective.
Also, what would happen if the funders, especially the big-monied ones, decide they want their not especially well-thought-through views canvassed? Would citizens be better or worse informed than under the tenure of Rupert Murdoch or one of the new social media tycoons like Mark Zuckerberg?
And Zuckerberg isn’t alone. The widow of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs, bought The Atlantic. Jeff Bezos, using his Amazon billions, bought The Washington Post.
Is this just the growth of tribalism as the tech-driven world of the last century starts to fall apart? And more importantly, can the combined might of Big Tech and Big Media be offset by alternative narratives to help deliver balance?
Many of us have found ourselves wincing at the continued rise of celebrity culture and the seemingly selfish and nationalistic bent of some of the latest popular narratives. But there are many other important voices out there that we hear little or nothing about via the mainstream media.
Tortoise Media isn’t the only new major media portal with a difference. Those who open their ears to these broader narratives often seem to make more sense of the world and are more likely to understand the need for seismic changes in how we live our lives if humanity is to avoid a Doomsday scenario.
Some of the biggest companies in the world are waking up to this. They see the risk of sticking to the long-held, short-sighted rubric of profit maximization at all costs.
Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, has been creeping up the agenda for many companies, and not just as a marketing device. Satisfying the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit is becoming more common.
Two corporations that have embraced this are Unilever and Novo Nordisk, in the fast-moving consumer goods and health products (pharmaceuticals, supplements, medical devices) markets. “Future-fit” companies understand they need to win people’s trust in order to grow sustainably.
This brings me full-circle back to where I started. Let’s remember that our world view is based on what we learn and experience via our five senses. We need to be very mindful about the sources of our information, and it’s time we apply our same desire to be informed of the provenance of our foods to the provenance of our news.
It seems that if we, the grassroots, can help to support some of the diverse channels through which we hear about the world around us, we will be in a stronger position to make more informed choices, including over whom we elect to lead our countries, and what foods and health products we put inside our bodies.
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