A few words about what led to today’s column.
I’m writing a book about feeding the world without destroying the planet.
Some of the shocking things I’ve discovered prompted me to think about strategic food reserves. So I thought I’d asked the government about ours.
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I’m writing a book about feeding the world without destroying the planet.
Some of the shocking things I’ve discovered prompted me to think about strategic food reserves. So I thought I’d asked the government about ours.
Thread/
I was startled to discover that we don’t have any. This made me think about January 1. Then it occurred to me to look into warehouse capacity.
In other words, it came from a deep dive into an issue that's not in the news, as most of my columns do.
In other words, it came from a deep dive into an issue that's not in the news, as most of my columns do.
I know this might sound strange, but I feel it’s essential that at least some journalists have as little to do with the media as possible. If you’re embedded in the media’s world, it is hard to see past it to the gigantic issues it doesn’t cover.
What the media tends to see, and the news tends to cover, is a tiny fraction of what is really happening, and often an unimportant one. The biggest issues (especially aspects of our environmental crises) are routinely neglected.
I try to socialise as little as possible with other journalists. That’s not because I don’t like them – there are some great people in the field. It’s because you begin to think alike. The media is a peculiar world, with its own peculiar culture and priorities.
It’s not that everybody forms the same opinion on a particular issue. It’s deeper than that: your attention concentrates on the same issues. Even if you disagree fiercely about them, you agree that they are worth discussing, and that, by implication, other issues aren’t.
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