The Sunday Reflection #84 - Inspiration, truth and rejection

      My front garden with below some of the blooms       

What makes me get out of bed in the morning? Well the glib answer is a cup of tea and the need to walk our dogs, but I am sure you know that is not what I was really asking. It is the fact that every day is different. Some days are wonderful, some are awful, most are days where life just passes you by. Some days I wake up with things to do, events to go to, people to meet. Sometimes there is nothing in the diary. The first thing I do is look out of the window. Is the Sun shining? Is it raining? Unlike nearly all of my neighbours, I still have a front garden. It is the first thing I see when I leave the house. It gives me inspiration and sets me up in the right frame of mind for the day. For me that is more important than being able to jump straight in my car. Even when it is raining and miserable, the garden reminds me that plants need rain. 

If it is raining, that will make some of my decisions for me. The clothes I wear, the way I get to work. I rarely drive, it is a lovely walk. If the sun is shining, I take the more scenic route. This time of year, I'll often stop in Mill Hill Park and photograph the blossoms and trees, if the light is right. On such days, it is not hard to find inspiration. If it is belting down with rain, and I drive, it is hard to feel inspired. As a songwriter, I seek inspiration in the strangest of places. I was walking to work last week and I walked down Flower Lane. I used to deliver papers to people in the street. There were all sorts of people on the round. I did the round for two years and got to know many of the people. Some were nice, some were not. There were three houses in particular that I have stories about. I told one of them in yesterdays blog. I wrote a brand new song about the second story earlier this week. It's called Naughty Naughty, but you'll have to wait to learn more of that. 

The third story? Slightly duller. One of the houses was that of a senior journalist. He got every paper every morning. He was the only house on the road that got the Morning Star. One day he was in the garden as I arrived. I handed him the papers and we had a chat. I asked him how he got any work done if he had to read all of those papers. I also asked him why read them, if other papers had already printed the stories. He explained that often he'd realise from reading interviews etc, that other journalists had missed a key fact, not asked the key question, etc. He'd then be on the trail and many of his scoops started in this way. I quite liked the sound of being a journalist and asked him how you got involved. He suggested that many people start on local papers and if they are any good, they progress.

I discussed this with my Dad. He knew Dennis Signy, the editor of the Hendon Times, and I suggested he could ask him about a job for me. My Dad's response was "I didn't know you could read and write". English was not my strong point at school (being dyslexic). I really had nothing other than an inkling that I might make a good journalist, certainly nothing to back it up. But Dad did arrange for me to go for a beer with him and Dennis. Dennis gave some advice. I was still at school "Get involved in the school magazine, enter writing competitions, write letters to papers and keep them and then come back when you have a body of work". Fair advice, but advice I didn't take. I found writing boring and difficult. Inspiration counts for nothing if you let it wither. Doing this blog has convinced me that I would have done a great job, but I was too lazy and stupid as a teenager to do what I needed to do. Being inspired is not enough.

Dennis told me the truth. He wasn't patronising or condescending. He made it clear that journalism was both a job and a calling and the best journalists have two qualities that I've come to realise are in short supply in this world. They tell the truth and they take risks. When we watch journalists in places like Ukraine, they are at risk. Many journalists die in the execution of their work. Many more are locked up by repressive regimes. In thecurrent Trumpite era, truth seems to be a relative than an absolute commodity. As to courage? I genuinely never thought we'd see a situation where journalistic freedoms are under threat in liberal democracies. But they are. There is a concept that has emerged over the last few years, that disturbs me greatly. It is the concept of "my truth". The idea that we can have our own version of truth, often a truth that is not backed up by evidence. Often a truth where challenging dangerous ideas and concepts is wantonly dismissed. If there is evidence that undermines "my truth" it is simply ignored. There is a whole industry based on undermining provable facts, with lies, distortions and untruths. A new tool has emerged in this. It is AI. We now have a situation where almost no picture, video or any other evidence can be treated as real. It is almost as if the whole concept of truth and reality has become obsolete. Where does this take us? 

Lets take something really boring and mundane. Lets imagine that there is a wonderful, historic trout river in Somerset. A journalist hears that a water company has been discharging raw sewage into it. They go down, interview local people, take pictures and videos of dead fish and the other detritus of sewage, then interview the local MP. They contact the water company for a quote, as all decent and fair journalists do. What if the water company, on hearing about a journalist sniffing around, get their PR department to debunk the story fake news, claim the pictures and videos are AI generated. What if they invite the MP in, present their version of the truth, make donations to running the MP's office. What happens to the story? Who do we believe? Why should we believe anything? 

And that leads us to the dark downside of all this. Rejection. The scenario I described above is made up. It is fake news. It is a scenario I invented in my head. It is plausable. It may even have happened, but it is fiction in as much as until I decided to construct such a story, it didn't exist (even if it really has happened). However, the scenario I described is happening every day, with the major details changed. Multinational companies employ PR departments to debunk genuine stories. MP's get donations from lobbyists to ensure that the version of the truth the companies want to be told gets told. Journalists, who have done their homework, been honest and decent and told the truth have been hounded. In the UK the story of Carole Cadwalla is a cautionary tale for all of the dangers of being a journalist. In the US, we have a President attacking whole news organisations constantly. Of all of the aspects of the Cadwalla case, the most disturbing is the complete lack of support for her from the paper she was working for. 

Rejection and failure by an employer to support staff, is in my opinion, the worst form of cowardice. When the organisation that is failing is one that is supposed to be a bastion of truth, one relied on by hundreds of thousands of people for honest and fair news, it is sickening. This blog only started after a blog I wrote for the Barnet Times was dropped after the paper was put under pressure by the Tories running Barnet Council (Read about it here). The difficult thing for me, was that all I had done was told the truth and broken a story that other outlets, such as the Jewish Chronicle then picked up on. Not one iota of the of what I said was disputed or challenged. A former Chairman of the Chipping Barnet Tories even left a comment supporting me. The only regret I had was that I loved being associated with the Barnet Times. It was a lifelong ambition to write for them. I wasn't sacked because I was no good. My blog was actually the most read thing on their site, when they sacked me. I was sacked for telling the truth. A difficult truth and one that their largest advertiser (Barnet Council) didn't like. But when it comes down to it, do I regret posting a story that exposed the truth that Barnet Council had posted a video featuring anti semitic comments by a neo Nazi? No.  To me, rejection was a price worth paying for telling the truth. It always will be.

This morning at mass I was in a sombre mood. In the bulletin, was the news that the father of a friend has passed away. He was a contemporary of my Dad, perhaps one of last few. His son was at St Vincents, FCHS and also an alter server with me. His parents were stalwarts of the local community. It got me thinking about my Father. I can remember discussing the Watergate scandal with him. I was fascinated by the courage and persistence of the journalists who exposed Nixon. Dad cautioned me "Being a Roman Catholic should have taught you one lesson, if you tell the truth to a baying mob, you might just get crucified". I was shocked. I said to Dad "Are you saying that we should buckle in the face of screaming mobs?". That seemed a very un-Dad thing to say. His response stuck with me. He said "No, not all, if you put yourself in that position, you have to tell the truth, but you need to go into such situations with your eyes wide open and realise what is likely to happen". He added "There is a saying, don't put your head above the parapet if you don't want to get shot. What they don't tell you though, is that if no one puts their head above the parapet, you all get bayonetted". Another lesson of the Easter season, one that is difficult to come to terms with, is that every one of the people who accompanied Jesus on his travels deserted him, when the baying mob came for him. Truth has a heavy price, but if no one has the courage to tell the truth, we are all well and truly doomed.

On that note, have a great weekend.