and finally...


If it’s written down, then it must be true


Papers are credible but can be disheartening, Chris Proctor finds M


y family needed to get away after all the lockdowns. Bags packed, car hired and sandwiches at the


ready, off we voyaged to distant climes. Well, Yorkshire. It was marvellous, but that isn’t the


point. I was going to tell you about the lady in the newsagent’s where I added to staycation joys by purchasing a ream of local papers. Watching my purchases, the woman in question sniffed and tutted simultaneously, which is actually quite a tricky manoeuvre, and said she didn’t buy newspapers any more. “They’re full of bad news,” she told me. “I listen to the radio.” As a scribbler with a deep


attachment to print, I pointed out that this wasn’t entirely rational. It didn’t make the news any better. It was the same news, told differently. No, she said. It’s not so bad on the radio. “If you see it all written down in


black and white, it’s more depressing,” she said. At that point, her husband, identifying me as a Londoner and therefore a Covid risk, hurried her away so I couldn’t continue my investigations. But I think I know what she meant. There is an enduring myth that if you write something down, it becomes more authentic. It looks binding and unretractable in its 24-hour permanence. We don’t apply ourselves to the same


extent to the TV, the radio or a podcast. We’re always aware of background noise, domestic demands or desirable distractions. Voices on the radio could almost be someone gossiping: what


they say is not so definitive as the written word. A friend told me about being stopped at the port in France this summer to have her Covid status scrutinised. She was asked if she was double vaccinated, and said she was. To make absolutely sure, she was then required to sign a ‘déclaration d’honneur’. Obviously, you have to tell the truth if it’s going to be there in black and white. OK. This golden rule has its


exceptions. Party political manifestos, for example, like those undertaking not to raise taxes, or the promise of enriching the NHS by £350 million a week as a result of Brexit. But at least we have physical proof of the government reneging, even if it does us no good. It’s interesting that people buy


newspapers when something that they consider momentous occurs – when online or broadcast reports just won’t do. For the paper industry, September 1997 will always be Diana month: sales rocketed. And the day Thatcher resigned, newspaper advertising boards were instantly snaffled, the headline taken home for savouring or framing. Having it in writing proved it really had happened.


Of course, it doesn’t always work.


Even when you see it in print, you still doubt that a Lancaster bomber has been found on the moon, that there is a statue of Elvis on Mars or that a London bus has been discovered in Antarctica. But even these joyous porkies demonstrate the power of the ‘black-and-white’ syndrome. If someone had told you these stories,


they would have been heard, dismissed and forgotten, like Theresa May. But we remember them.


All the same, it is a sad state of affairs


when potential readers are scared away from our efforts, fearful of doom, gloom and dejection. We need more stories that amuse as well as inform, like the marvellous ignoble Ig Nobel awards. These are handed out each year to scientists carrying out the most bizarre research. This year’s winner was a Cornell University experiment involving hanging rhinoceroses upside down; they wanted to assess if the animals’ health might be compromised by slinging them by their legs under a helicopter. Another outfit is engaged in controlling cockroaches on submarines. As ever, the locals, those great sources of all our national stories, show the way. They tell readers what’s going on in their area, and do it without drama or sensationalism – and sit these stories alongside very amusing tales.


“ ”


The papers I bought in the Yorkshire


People buy newspapers when something that they consider momentus occurs


newsagent included the headline ‘Missing man found in pub’, recorded details of a duck race at a summer fair, noted that St Mary’s church is now open daily but will be closed on Sunday, and described a convention of members of HAPPY, otherwise known as the Hedgehog Appreciation Prickly Pals Yorkshire. If we learned lessons from the locals, the source of all our best stories, my fellow customer in Leyburn could stroll fearlessly to the newsagent, confident as Joni Mitchell that she’d be able to see life from both sides now.


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