For the last week, like many people I suspect, I’ve been semi-permanently watching the ongoing situation in Japan, from the early hours of the earthquake and tsunami, through to the current nuclear and humanitarian crisis. It’s hard not to get through an edition of the news without a lump in the throat many evenings at the moment.
From a grimly professional point of view, though, I found it fascinating that during the earthquake, the immediate response of some people was to grab a video camera and start filming, before posting the footage to YouTube or other social media sites.
There was a time that most sensible people would run away, while the journalists would be the only ones running towards the disaster with cameras rolling. Yet now recording seems second nature. Perhaps you could go as far as to say citizen journalism as a phrase should be discarded if that’s one of the first instincts. All of us on social media are becoming citizen journalists.
What hasn’t changed, fundamentally, though, is the way the narrative is told. Social media makes it clearer in the initial phase, through the use of YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, but once the often shocking initial footage clears and the basic facts are in place, then the storytellers, the journalists, thread the whole thing together (for better or for worse). As Richard Sambrook Tweeted, the need for foreign correspondents is still there.
This isn’t to say the sources aren’t different or more immediate, especially in the case of Twitter. And social media is also becoming, naturally, the quickest way to reach friends, families and loved ones.
Do users of social media, as Mashable asks, have a responsibility with what they post during times of disaster and crisis? Perhaps this isn’t the first thing on their mind in a situation like Japan or Libya. Although it’s also very easy for rumours and misinformation to spread like wildfire via Twitter. Again, this is where fact checkers are never a bad thing to have.
One final tangental thought. A friend remarked that there appear to be more disasters and the like occurring around the world today. I wonder if it’s more than these worldwide disasters were always there, always happened, but we didn’t hear about them, or at least didn’t hear about them so quickly.
Twenty-four hour global news had already made the world small. Social media has made it even smaller, so we’re now more aware of bad things happening quicker, to put it crudely. And, oddly, you can almost see the same news values an editor might pick, being played out on a more global scale. Bad things attract more attention, generally because they’re so unusual.
Doesn’t mean they’re not heartbreaking though. Thousands of lives lost are still thousands of lives lost, whether we hear about them within five hours, fives days, or five weeks of the event.
Friday 27th August: The day the station formerly known as Lantern FM was finally killed off. Outside of North Devon it’s doubtful any tears were shed, but it’s just one of a number of Global FM stations that are disappearing off the map.
It’s a subject I’ve returned to often and one I have an avowed interest in. Lantern were one of the first stations to give me freelance shifts. I can’t say my reporting was that great (North Devon’s never been an area I’ve ever been overly familiar with) but the station got by.
One thing always struck me though: just how much pride North Devon took in their station. Mention you worked for Lantern and you were treated like royalty.
Lantern may have been a very small station in comparison to its sister stations and the news was often less than scintillating, but it knew its target audience and its target audience appreciated with plenty of love and respect.
In many ways North Devon was one of the more unusual patches a station could have to deal with. It’s not uncommon for local stations to be based around one major town or city and cover the surrounding rural area, but Lantern was almost completely rural, with several towns but none of them quite big enough to get top billing.
To the Lantern FM audience, Exeter was a world away and Plymouth may as well have been a different planet. Hyperlocal mattered more to North Devonians than the rest of the county, even if the word hyperlocal hadn’t really been coined back then.
Lantern, so we were frequently told, was a profitable station (I guess local advertising was a pretty good way to reach a high dispersed audience). It was well loved. The RAJARs were decent. But it wasn’t exactly a sexy or enticing station.
So, as part of Global Radio’s plans to make local radio more profitable, Lantern was rebranded Heart FM and had more networked programming inserted into it. A small part of Lantern’s soul died, but listeners could still wake up to breakfast DJs Hopps and Chapple and find out where the roadworks were and if any schools were closed, and any of the other day-to-day essentials.
Then, as part of Global’s plans to make local radio more profitable, it was announced that the station formerly known as Lantern would be closing, along with other stations in Plymouth and the South Hams, and one Devon wide superstation would be created, based in Exeter.
Hopps will be departing, as will Chapple. Plenty of other talented local DJs across the Devon Heart network who live in and love their communities are also departing. There’s more networked programming. Listeners in Ilfracombe will probably, rightly, wonder what the hell this new station has to do with their area and when, or if, their northerly coastal town will ever get a mention on air.
Although it’s dangerous to interpret Facebook groups as a general popular groundswell, there’s currently 3,410 members of three separate groups to save Lantern FM. Not bad for a part of the country where internet usage is lower than the average.
There’s a demand for local radio in a place like, for sure. How to get it to pay for itself is another question completely. Former Lantern DJ Ian Starling has set up his own limited reach community station. It will be interesting to see if this continues to grow as disenfranchised listeners turn elsewhere for their local fix.
It’s a situation that’s being repeated across the country as local radio fans protest about Global’s decision to axe several stations. It’s unlikely these protests will have much effect.
As somebody who’s worked for plenty of local radio stations it’s heartbreaking to see what’s being done to once-loved local institutions.
I won’t disagree that local radio occasionally needs a shake up, nor that they may not always be profitable. But the continuing cuts are straight out of the manual of how to lose and alienate local audiences.
In an age of increased listening choice, local, more than ever, is a USP. More networked shows covering a wider area with little relevance to specific communities isn’t the most inspiring recipe for success.
It’s easy to sneer at the music, but this has never been the important bit of local radio. As long as there are familiar and catchy songs then people will listen. What really hooks them in is a good DJ talking about how much fun they had in Bideford a couple of days ago. Or a great ice cream they scoffed at Westward Ho!
A local councillor once told me that the local commercial radio stations were they first places she called when she wanted to highlight a campaign – because we’d talk to the audience in language they understood and could make it feel important to them, locally, she’d always see a huge rise in phone calls the next day from members of the public.
That was several years ago. I doubt if she gets the same response now.
Hopefully something will spring up to replace Lantern FM. And other local radio stations. And other local newspapers, that are also suffering, through a mixture of shifting readership and management incompetency.
Local media is much-maligned. It’s also the lifeblood of a large section of the community. And well loved too. I’m sad to see Lantern’s demise but not, I suspect, half as sad as a good number of people in North Devon.
The floods in Peru have long since stopped making the news in the UK, but the relief effort still has a long way to go. Around 30-40 thousand people have been affected by the floods. Many are still living in tents or temporary accommodation. Houses are in a state of near-collapse. Some people have, quite literally, lost everything.
Until this time last week, my knowledge of Peru probably extended as far as Nolberto Solano and Paddington Bear. And that was about it. Yet this last week has meant I’ve been reading more about the South American country than I’d ever have envisaged. And feel I know enough to blog a couple of questions over the natural disaster.
Before I do, I’m well aware that while my focus on here has been spreading the word about my girlfriend, now safely rescued, there is also a big need for aid and a human cost to this all.
While, thankfully, the death toll has been relatively low, the devastation will be felt for months, even years, to come. More than 23,000 people have been left homeless, while over 37,000 people in the country have been affected by the floods. 80% of homes in the area have been destroyed. More than 16,000 hectares of crops have been damaged, many bridges have been destroyed and some areas of Cusco have no received any aid or help whatsoever.
So, what of both the aid effort and the rescue effort itself? Let’s start with the airlift and then move onto aid.
It was clear on Sunday that there would be a major operation needed to rescue all those trapped in and around Machu Picchu. The railway had been washed away and it would take several weeks to repair. With no way in or out of the village, at the very least, supplies would be needed.
It was also clear that, with just a few helicopters seconded to the area – initially two but rising to 11 – not to mention the devastation to the surrounding area, the effort fell some way short of what was required initially. Even if this was a localised problem, it wouldn’t have hurt to request help from neighbouring countries.
Yet we know from S that, despite reports of airlifts as early as Tuesday, the evacuation didn’t properly start until Thursday. Until then, only one American helicopter made an appearance in Machu Picchu.
The Americans did send helicopters to help evacuate their citizens, as is to be expected. Only after then did Peru manage to get use of their helicopters.
Organising an airlift is probably the easiest thing the Peruvian government had to do. Phone reception was still working, they knew where the majority of the tourists were stranded. Yet nothing was properly communicated until late Wednesday / early Thursday.
So, here’s the first question. Why did it take so long to organise the airlift? And why was no help request from other countries or outside agencies?
And now the aid itself. With so much devastation, with or without tourists, it was clear significant aid was needed. The government insisted it could manage, so made no requests to international aid agencies, the local Red Cross, or other countries.
In essence, the government control every aspect of the rescue and aid effort. If they don’t request any help, none can be given. Yet a week later, other than the tourists and the locals in Machu Picchu, the aid effort appears slow in the wider region of Cusco. This is worrying. The foreign press will now have turned their attention away from Cusco.
The area around Cusco has been designated an emergency zone, not a disaster zone. A disaster zone would have been more likely to bring international aid. An emergency zone meant the government could take care of it themselves? Why? It’s clear that foreign aid would have been useful here.
There are a number of theories you could put here, although it’s worth stressing there’s no suggestion of any wrongdoing on the part of the Peruvian government. But it does raise questions.
One theory (and apologies, as I’m moving of facts here to speculation) concerns the tourist trade. Peru is currently being sold as a booming economy, albeit one that relies heavily on tourism. It would make life uncomfortable for the authorities if a growing country with a strong economy couldn’t quickly look after its own citizens. They may also be worried about the effect abroad – hence the quick(ish) evacuation of the tourists, and the slowdown when it comes to aid for its own citizens.
The second theory is a little more complicated, and requires a little better understanding of Peruvian politics (and Spanish) than I currently have, but roughly concerns to the politicization of aid efforts.
This news report suggests that an official for the National Programme of Food Aid in Peru (PRONAA) used the agency to promote her own candidacy for upcoming elections.
As a quick end tangent to this, try Googling around the Peru earthquake of 2007, particularly around Pisco. And see how much you can find about progress in rebuilding the area after the quake.
At the end of the day, I’m obviously very grateful that the authorities airlifted S and others out of Machu Picchu, and that when help did finally arrive it was efficient. But it would also be terrible if the government left it just at saving foreign tourists.
There are people in Cusco whose livelihoods and homes have been completely destroyed by these floods. These are also the people who need help the most. They’re counting on their government not to let them down. Let’s hope expectation isn’t where their needs finish.
Earlier today I got the phone call I’d been hoping for. Even though it was fairly likely S would be on one of the first airlifts out of Machu Picchu today, it wasn’t until she called and I heard it from her voice that I could start to relax. It has, it’s fair to say, been one of the more worrying weeks I’ve had.
Yesterday was one of those days of hope but not knowing. S started off the day being told to head for a briefing with her tour company and being told that they would get flown out. Probably. Possibly.
The 29-and-under group, including S, were told they would be last out. But still they queued up, not knowing if they’d get out. S had already paid for a hotel room for another night but it was soon clear that heading back to the hotel would see her lose her place in the queue. The wait went on. At 10am they started queuing. At about 3.30pm, they got to the holding pen for the flights, a train carriage.
At least things were moving. As S told the Living In Peru website: ” Today was good but yesterday was chaotic.” After confusion of not knowing who or when anybody would be flown out, at least there was progress.
But there was still frustrating. As S and her group made their way to the front of the queue, and then to the landing area, they were told that, due to adverse weather, there were to be no more flights out for the day. Having stood and seen the helicopter land, they weren’t allowed to be on it when it took off. The military took names and said they would be first out the next day.
So frustration as they trudged back to the train carriage. Having been so near, S would have to spend another night. She couldn’t head back to the hotel because she would lose her place in the queue. Frustrated and upset, I got a call around half ten, UK time. But it was so good to hear her voice (punctuated by random shouts of Argentine tourists playing football to keep occupied). And while it was frustrating, the end was in sight.
What followed was, I can only imagine, a very uncomfortable night in an old train carriage. Morning came, and there were still more problems. As the army began processing the tourists again, there was a rush forward to get to the front of the queue. The list counted for nothing – the army had lost it overnight.
But S and her group stood their ground and, after a brief discussion, were herded onto the helicopter and away from the now-isolated tourist town. It had taken six days but they were finally out.
The phone call from S when she arrived in Cusco was one of the most relieving conversations I’ve ever had. I knew she would be evacuated but I just wanted to hear it from her voice. Two days earlier I’d nearly broken down in tears when she text to say the electricity had gone and she’d have to switch off her phone, meaning no further contact. Today, I nearly cried again, but for completely different reasons.
After contacting me and her parents, S had, I’d imagine, a very long shower. It was the first time she’d had access to hot water in six days.
At the time of writing, S is currently in Lima trying to secure a flight to Rio. She was due to fly out earlier today to start a second tour, taking in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. She’s not been put off by her experiences and wants to see the rest of South America. She’s a tough cookie inside, and I love her for that.
She had originally tried to change her flight but TMA Airlines refused to do refunds and wanted to charge her £800 for changing. She, understandably, baulked at this. She’s currently searching around for another flight. Thankfully Isabel and Nathan from Living In Peru have been able to help – they have been utterly fantastic as reporters and for help and advice. Peru should be proud to have journalists like them.
Still, these are logistical issues and hopefully will be sorted soon. The main thing to me is S is safe and no longer stranded. She won’t be home for a while, but I’ll be waiting, ready to give her a big hug when she returns. I am just so thankful she is safe.
But she leaves behind an area devastated by floods and mudslides, and one that will take much help and rebuilding. If you want to get a picture of what the Cusco region is like, Andrew Dare has written a moving piece on the situation.
I’ll blog more about Peru, some further thoughts on the situation in general, and a consideration of the social media aspects. In the meantime, I can head to bed at a decent hour tonight without worrying about whether S will be stuck for another day without any knowledge of when she’ll escape. For that, I’m thankful.
Thanks to everybody who has offered kind words of support and helped at various point. It has been appreciated more than you could possibly imagine.
UPDATE: S has just rung me – after several phone calls she has managed to secure a flight to Rio. She’ll arrive a few hours after she planned to, but her holiday is back on track. She has memories and stories that will last a lifetime (apparently people were sleeping on the luggage racks on the train carriage last night).
Thanks once more to Isabel and Nathan. I can now head to sleep for tonight and sleep easier than I have done all week. I’ll continue to blog about Peru though. S may be out, but I don’t want the rebuilding effort to be forgotten.
It’s a good job this blog post wasn’t written an hour earlier. About six hours ago, I got a text from S saying the power had gone down in her area and there had been no sign of helicopters. There had been no news and nobody had told S or her group anything. With water and food supplies starting to run down even further, the situation was looking grim.
With no power to charge her phone, S turned it off to save the batteries for emergencies. I left work a worried man, not knowing when I would hear from her again or what she was going through. Needless to say, the big drama of tonight’s Carling Cup game passed me by – I just wasn’t interested in anything other than scouring the net for news.
Then, about 20 minutes ago, I sent her a text telling her to stay strong, how much I loved her, and the rest. She replied almost immediately. The power had returned and, even more relieving, helicopters were arriving. I was so happy, I nearly hugged my housemate. He was just coming out of the shower at the time, so it was probably for the best that this didn’t happen.
S isn’t out of Machu Picchu yet, but at least help has arrived and it can only be a matter of time before she’s airlifted out of the stricken region. In the meantime, there are fresh supplies. Out of all the problems, I was most concerned about the lack of water. At least that has been eased for the time being.
So, it looks like, for S at least, it’s the start of the end of her Machu Picchu adventure and I’ll be so relieved when she finally makes it out and to safety.
But I’m also painfully aware that S, for all her distress and discomfort, and for all the worrying I’ve done, has had it easy compared to others. She has had a hotel room, food and, ultimately, a home to come back to. Many aren’t so lucky and have lost their homes and, with crops destroyed, their livelihoods too.
Thesevideos demonstrate that. Apologies, I’m having trouble embedding them, but they need to be seen.
To that end, I was prepared to put my money where my mouth was and donate to a disaster relief fund for Peru. I know it won’t be much, but at least it can help repair infrastructure and homes.
However, this has been slightly complicated by the fact that Peru doesn’t have seemed to ask for aid, so there are no direct charity appeals. Even the Peruvian Red Cross don’t seem to have been approached. Which kind of makes donations a little tricky.
If, after a few days, there’s still nothing, I’ll be donating to the Red Cross Disaster Fund. It’s not exactly Peru, I know, but at least the money will go towards somebody, somewhere, who needs it more than I do. If you feel so inclined, please feel free to do the same.
I’d also like to say a huge thanks to everybody who has emailed, text or Facebooked words of support and kindness to both myself and S over the last couple of days. It has been hugely appreciated and very comforting. Also, huge thanks to those who’ve been able to help in some form or another, and also to the journalists who’ve coveredthisstory and have contacted either myself or S.
Granted, in the UK this may not have received huge amounts of coverage, but the articles have been well written and have tallied closely to what S has been telling me from the ground.
At the very least, it has raised awareness of this situation. From S’s point of view, I think it’s been comforting to know the situation hasn’t been forgotten or ignored and she can get the message out about what’s happening in Machu Picchu and the surrounding area.
I’ll update again in the next couple of days when, hopefully, S will have been airlifted out of the area and will be safely heading towards Lima. But I’ll also try and revisit the topic from time to time to keep awareness of the rebuilding effort in Peru. It’s the least I can do. I’ll also try and get a few more academic thoughts down on social media, disaster reporting and the like. Understandably, I’d like to wait until S is safe and sound until I do this.
In the meantime, I’d like to point you in the direct of the excellent Living In Peru website, who have been continually updating news on the disaster. Their coverage has been excellent and helped me no end when it comes to understanding Peru. I’ve also been in contact with Isabel and Nathan from the site, who’ve updated me on the general situation. Please do pay them a visit and spread the word.
Yesterday I was concerned for my girlfriend, trapped in Machu Picchu after heavy rains and mudslides, but optimistic from what she was saying, and news reports, that she would soon be out. Today, I’m a lot more worried and have no idea when she’ll escape from the village, cut off from the rest of the country.
I spoke to S again earlier this evening, and things are both better and worse. Mainly worse.
Yesterday they were told the evacuation, using planes and helicopters, would start today. They have seen and heard nothing about this. A US plane, intended for American citizens arrive, but was commandeered by the locals. The Americans, like S, remain [1].
S is one of the lucky ones, insofar as she has a hotel room. Most others don’t. There are lots of tourists sleeping wherever they can get a space. But in Machu Picchu at this time, nothing is certain. “I’m going back to my hotel,” she told me earlier. “That is, if somebody hasn’t paid more money for it while I’ve been out.”
Like almost everything else in the village, any form of comfort comes at a premium. Hotel rooms are exchanging hands for ever-increasing sums of money, as is food. Supplies are dwindling and nobody knows how much is left. Anything that remains on the shelf is being marked up to double, sometimes triple the price.
Not everybody can afford the food at the original price. Many tourists arrived with minimal money, expecting only to spend a day or two. Now their cash has run out and the ATMs are not dispensing. A small amount of food and water made it through on the US plane and has been distributed out.
Even if you get your hands on some food, there’s no guarantee it’ll be edible. The gas supply is down in Machu Picchu, so nobody can cook anything.
So, everybody waits. After three days, S finally found six other British tourists, staying in a tent, which has raised her spirits somewhat. The Australians, of which there are many, have headed mainly for the bar and there’s even a slight party atmosphere. As S said, they can either sit around and be miserable or try to make the best out of a bad situation.
But, for all the new friendships made, there is genuine concern about what will happen the longer the village remains cut off and no help arrives. What will happen when supplies get lower and people are fighting over the food? S is concerned that the jovial atmosphere could turn nasty quickly. There already appears to be tension with the locals.
And still people wait for news. Some Australian papers have reported the evacuation is underway in earnest and many people are safely out. Not so, says S. Apart from the US plane, there has been no sign of any airlift and no communication from the Peruvian government. Nobody appears to be in charge. News reports suggest helicopters were launched but only a few dozen were evacuated due to bad weather.
At the station, many elderly Peruvians mill around the platform. They, and everybody else, are continually told the train will soon be running, perhaps even tomorrow, but tomorrow arrives and the tracks are still not fixed. In all honesty, I wouldn’t want S travelling on a makeshift track when there’s more risk of mudslides.
So, that is the situation S finds herself in. She’s reasonably high up, so probably not at risk from further flooding or landslides, and people are coping, but everybody is aware that the situation cannot remain as it is for much longer.
In the meantime, the Guardian have spoken to her, in possible the most accurate report (going by what she’s told me) I’ve seen so far on the topic [2].
On my end, it’s the frustration and worry of waiting and not knowing that does it for me. It’s been fantastic to hear her voice two days in a row and to reassure each other everything will be ok. And I’m sure it will be, but I’ll only feel that way until she’s safely out of Machu Picchu.
In the meantime, I find myself combing news sites and watching 24 news channels waiting, hoping, for any further news and doing what I can to help from this end, which turns out to be not a lot, although S is grateful for any outside news (I should update her on the latest Corrie storylines, really) and is quick to point out errors in any reports.
I’ve also rung the foreign office, as has her dad. They’ve been very helpful and calming, and know where she is. They’re hoping rescuers will be with her in the next couple of days. Ok, it’s still two days, but it’s helpful to hear that. I certainly feel a bit more at ease after speaking to them.
And then there’s Twitter, where I’ve been relaying news from her and the general situation in Machu Picchu. I figure if I don’t keep the word and the news going, nobody will.
It’s also been a great comfort to receive well wishes from friends, followers and people who’ve just seen the Tweets and passed on their support. Again, it’s helped ease the burden. Particular thanks to Geordie, for translation, Hayley, Sian and Jon who’ve been more help and support than they can possible know.
In the meantime, all S and I can do is wait and see if tomorrow brings helicopters, and know that no matter how uncomfortable and worrying this situation is, it could be a lot worse.
[1] Weirdly, a scene from the Camino Real pops into my head while writing this, but now is not the time nor the place for Tennessee Williams.
[2] I wasn’t originally going to pass on her details to the press, partly because yesterday it seemed as if the situation was under control, but also because I wasn’t sure if she’d spoken to her mum. I don’t know her family that well, and I didn’t want them to find out via News At Ten rather than S herself. “Yeah, hi S’s mum. Yep, you know that near heart-attack you had after seeing her on the news? Yeah, that may have been my fault.” Not the best way to introduce yourself to them.
What you’ve been saying