Lions and Tigers and Bears… Oh My!!

While having lunch with a friend recently in college, I overheard a portion of a regular radio show hosted by Neil Prendeville on a local Cork station. The show basically consists of the host taking phonecalls from middle-aged women at home during the middle of the day with pressing concerns over issues such as speed bumps, underage drinking and refuse collection. These are average topics, but you get the odd controversial issue in there too. The problem is that the controversial topics get lumped into this hour or two of nit-picking and giving out, and too often the issue at stake gets lost in phraseology or sounding off for the sake of it. Things that should be issues for debate and could be seen as contentious in our society get boiled down to ‘this is important. It is good. Therefore we have to have it. And if we don’t, we’ll ring up and give out.’ The radio show is not a debate about whether certain things should or should not be provided or looked after in our society, but an excuse to complain about the fact they are not. The issue at stake becomes lost in a contest of ‘who can moan the loudest.’

The example on the day in question was about IVF treatment for a woman in her 40s. The caller was a doctor pleading the case of an IVF candidate who ‘deperately needed IVF treatment.’ No facts were given about IVF treatment, no discussion occurred as to why she urgently needed this, and no further light was shed on why she was not receiving the treatment. What followed was a barrage of calls saying what a disgrace it was that she had to wait/couldn’t afford the treatment. I’m not saying that IVF isn’t an important issue worth discussing, but to put it across as a given that it is a necessity is just misrepresentation of the issue. It is contentious. There is no consensus that IVF should be provided for women over a certain age. There is certainly no consensus about whether this should be considered a matter of medical urgency.

I fear that these type of programmes and this type of slant put on things in the media is the reason we are falling victim to ‘the Cowardly Lion Paradigm’ as I like to call it. When Dorothy went to Oz with her faithful companions, they all went seeking something. The Tin-Man needed a heart… fair enough, a heart is what I would call a necessity in day-to-day life. The Scarecrow needed a brain…again, I can’t see anyone getting far without one of those. The cowardly lion needed courage…. hang on. Ok, it would be great if he had courage and could reign supreme as king of the jungle, but he didn’t. He was afraid. Hence the name. The solution to not having courage should be to move out of the jungle and adapt to your surroundings. Its very sad, but that is your lot in life and you should go about dealing with it and trying your best to be the best lion you can be without whinging about it constantly. The lion didn’t need courage, he wanted courage. On this occasion, he got it. But life can’t always be about getting what we think we should have on a plate. Sometimes, we need to think about why we don’t have it and weigh up all sides….

Which brings me back to the radio show. I just get so annoyed by this whole idea that we no longer use public media to discuss the pros and cons of issues in our society. Some programmer/producer decides what the right side of the issue is and they have a debate about how awful it is that that can’t be the way all the time. ‘Why can’t we have speed bumps? The young people race through my park. Everywhere else has them.’ ‘They are out drinking it has to stop. Next it will be drugs. Then Joyriding.’ ‘The bin service is shocking. Why can’t it be more frequent? Why are they going on strike, my rubbish is piling up.’

I’m just waiting until all their nightmares come true and we have a radio programme about teenagers hopped up on drugs and booze, joyriding through speed-bumpless built up areas crashing into piles of rubbish all over the footpath. Neil, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…