The story of our lives

It’s a fool’s game, but around this time of year, pundits the world over stake their reputations to predict what will happen in the forthcoming 12 months. Shall we play?

Personally, despite my own idealistic tendencies to buck the trend and dream of a better world, my heart and soul find themselves at odds with my mind, skills and experience and must yield to better judgment. I’ve found that momentum wins the day in politics and society.

What leader, what idea, what trend, what personality manages to seize the public imagination, wins the competition to shape public opinion. So in 2020 must I take off my joke rose-coloured specs and hail the Populist, the Authoritiarian, the Censor, and say: Viva Trump, Johnson, Duterte, Aung San Suu Kyi, Xi and Putin! Viva Kardashians! Viva Refugee-Deniers! Viva Rights-Refusers! Viva Genocidaires! Viva the Buck! Viva Hate Speech! Viva Child Immigrant Detentions! Really? Must I? Must we?

Flashback to my favourite memory of a correct prediction in May 2010: in conversation with veteran southeast Asia political analyst Karim Raslan, as we covered the Philippine elections that saw Benign Aquino III installed in Malacañang Palace, when I told Karim I thought the Philippines was ready for a populist like Hugo Chavez. Boom. 

In 2015 I bumped into Straits Times journalist Nirmal Ghosh, as we covered the demonstrations to shut down Bangkok, he asked me what I thought would happen. We agreed it seemed a military coup seemed inevitable.

Then again, a few months ago I told a friend that I thought British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would take the United Kingdom out of the European Union without a deal on Halloween. Like I said, it’s a fool’s game. 

Besides, it’s not a game. It’s just that it’s much easier to game-ify the situation to build a cushion of emotional distance from the crushing deadlines and the myriad of ethical dilemmas and threats involved in journalism. So the game is at once a competition for “Cleverest In The Room”, the adrenalin kick of a gamble and a break from the norm without keeping your eye off the news ball. I admit I’m a bit of a news junkie; when I was a rookie writer at CNN International in Atlanta, a friend and colleague was scandalised when I mentioned I’d read a book about Bosnia. “You read books about work when you’re not at work?” he gasped, scandalized. Maybe it was an Atlanta thing… I got set up on a date under the fluorescent white lights of a California Pizza Kitchen there once, but thoughtlessly mentioned a book I’d read. Another man, aghast. “You READ? Are you an intellectual or something?” 

Looking back with 2020 vision (see what I did there), those days present themselves as the heyday of the 24-hour news phenomenon. It was never the same after it  became a part of the AOL/Time Warner mega buyout. It was pretty visionary in some ways. We were forbidden from using the word “foreign” – because “who is foreign if we’re being seen everywhere?” This posed a challenge when faced with a Foreign Secretary – oh yes, we were so earnest. 

Another part of the vision was CNN World Report, the program for which I was first employed. A journalist friend in London thought it was a laughing stock, showcasing news reports from broadcast partners around the world. It was an extraordinary thing and it was fun to work on, seeing how journalistic standards varied around the world and understanding the complexities behind them, without judging. We broadcast reports from North Cyprus and came under severe criticism for providing them a platform from Greek viewers. We ran reports on remote and obscure conflicts like the one between Armenia and Abkhazia, or in the southern Philippines when the rest of the network was wall-to-wall OJ Simpson. 

It seems prophetic thinking back to the program, now that I am also a veteran of the launch of Al Jazeera English. CNN World Report tried in a different way to “reverse the information flow” bringing the South to the North and the East to the West, “providing a voice to the voiceless” and an uncensored platform for different perspectives.

Perhaps most visionary of all was founder Ted Turner’s commitment to environmental programming. The unit that led the network’s coverage even produced what may possibly be the world’s first environmental cartoon superhero: Captain Planet. Its head was the environmental activist Barbara Pyle. Global warming, biodiversity, acid rain, pollution were given a special privileged place in the network structure that bust through the usual silos. At the time some people criticised the coverage because it wasn’t geared toward viewership. Turner didn’t care.

Back to the present. The first week of 2020 and headlines around the world reflect the new awareness 30 years on:

Apocalyptic scenes in Australia as fires turn skies blood red

Severe flooding in Jakarta has claimed at least 26 lives and forced thousands of people to abandon their homes

Norway records its warmest day in January 19ºC

Banality of the apocalypse

Images show a kangaroo rushing past a burning house, infants being ferried in rafts mcgyvered from inner tubes in floods that have piled cars on top of each other like toys.

Over the past 30 years, disasters – storms, floods, fires and droughts – have increased threefold, according to the UN. These disasters scarred lives, shattered families, stripped away livelihoods and set back development efforts. 

It is a certainty that wherever and whoever you are reading this, you will be affected. Health risks, diminished food security and water supply, rising sea levels, threats to peace and security, increased migration and displacement are all consequent human impacts, not to mention having to run for your life.

I can’t help thinking whatever news agenda you are being served, by whatever news outlets you follow, now is a time, not to predict the story of the year, but the story of our lives. It’s not a game either.