Wednesday, April 29, 2009

週末﹐母親如常撥電話來問問自己那個兒子的近況。

跟林大小姐一樣﹐母親叮囑道﹐要多注意身體﹐因為墨西哥那邊正爆發了沙士般的感冒﹐已經死了近百人。美國那邊已經有人因為到剛過墨西哥染病。愛爾蘭﹑英國跟美國關係密切﹐每天來往頻繁﹐病毒不難來到歐洲。況且﹐西班牙也已經證實有人感染了首先在墨西哥的那種感冒。也是剛到過那個中美洲國家後感染的。

這些我當然是知道的。因為我每天都買一份《泰晤士報》。

讀報紙讀到墨西哥市面的狀況﹐實在很順理成章地回憶起沙士時候的香港。

當全球都開始關注起墨西哥的情形﹐擔心起擴散的可能的時候﹐在愛爾蘭﹐本地報紙的頭條竟然還不是這個消息。有時候﹐我真的不大明白何解愛爾蘭的報紙要近兩塊一份﹖值這一個價錢嗎﹖

縱然是住在都柏林﹐我每天讀的還是《泰晤士報》。其中一個原因﹐當然是價錢問題。一份《泰晤士報》還不到一塊﹐足足比愛爾蘭本地報紙便宜接近一倍。更何況﹐不知道什麼原因﹐我老是覺得愛爾蘭的報紙不好讀。直到現在﹐我還不知道是什麼原因。

其實﹐這不是我個人的發現。身邊幾個非愛爾蘭人的朋友﹐都不喜歡讀愛爾蘭本地報紙。跟我一樣﹐都以為不好讀。無獨有偶﹐我們都是讀《泰晤士報》的。或者﹐只要是習慣了讀《泰晤士報》﹐便所有報紙的不是味兒。

去年聖誕在紐約小住了幾天﹐當然有買《紐約時報》。我同意﹐那份美國老牌報紙的副刊似乎比《泰晤士報》出色。至少﹐易讀。因為裡面軟性的資訊比英國那份歷史悠久報紙多很多。不過﹐在紐約街頭﹐雖然一手拿著《紐約時報》﹐我還是在每個報攤找尋一份《泰晤士報》。畢竟﹐無論《紐約時報》如何吸引﹐它始終不可能是我的那一杯茶。除非有天﹐足球成為美國人最熱愛的運動。《紐約時報》欠缺的﹐就是《泰晤士報》幾大版的足球報導。

在公司吃中飯的時候﹐有同事看到我在讀《泰晤士報》對墨西哥疫情的報導。望著那張一對墨西哥情侶戴著口罩接吻的照片﹐他笑道﹕「是否有誇張﹖」我轉過頭﹐望著他﹐有點沒有禮貌地說﹕「我可以告訴你﹐這實在很真實。因為我也曾經經歷過。假如你以為現在愛爾蘭的經濟很差﹐我可以告訴你﹐當這種致命感冒菌從墨西哥經美國來到此間﹐愛爾蘭的經濟將會比現在更差。因為將會沒有一個人夠膽出街。那年﹐在香港﹐當樓市泡沫爆破後﹐沙士便來了。莫忘記﹐歷史只是經常在世界不同的角落重複著。」

[按﹕此文其實寫於幾天前。]

4 comments:

Snowdrops said...

Okay I've meant to say this for quite some time since I discovered that you're a Times reader.

I've been reading the UK Times newspapers since I was in secondary school here, as I too dislike the local Irish newspapers.

All through my secondary school days and for almost all four years of college here, I always ordered the Sunday Times. I loved all the Sunday supplements. I witnessed the change in the position of the lead columnist in the Sunday Culture magazine, from Lynn Barber (perceptively brilliant) to Mariella Frostrup (worthy successor) to Jonathan Ross (crap all around apart from his one-liners), to when they actually got rid of the lead column on the in-laid page altogether.

I remember I always read Bryan Appleyard's interviews in the Sunday Times Magazine, as his were the most fair-minded and balanced. I also loved the "Day in the Life" feature on the last page of the magazine.

I stopped reading the Times though and switched to the Guardian about 7 or 8 years ago, due to a combination of factors. My ex at the time was (still is) a die-hard Guardianista, and persuaded me to see the conservative bias in the Times, and once I compared how the Times and the Guardian treated the same subject, I cannot go back to stomach the editorial bias in the Times news reporting.

But what really made me make the break was the Times' profiles of leading female figures, including Benazir Bhutto, the recently-murdered Pakistani politician; and Jung Chang, the Chinese author behind such ground-breaking works as Wild Swans and the biography on Mao. I simply could not believe the kind of anti-feminist and anti-intellectual (which was very strange for such an otherwise intellectual paper) bias there were in the articles, which went way beyond playing devil's advocate to basically character assasinating them. I remember Jung Chang wrote back a very restrained letter to correct the inaccuracies and mischaracterisations in the piece, which was published. But the paper made no apologies for both its factual inaccuracies, nor, as Jung Chang pointed out, its "discourtesy, at the very least".

Anyway, that was ages ago. Overall, the quality of the Irish newapapers are still sub-par when compared to the English ones. The NYT was a favourite of mine when I stayed in NYC, but then again, there is the blatant bias, to the extent that it distorts facts sometimes to suit its editorial slant (go and search for a recent piece called something like "Sir, you are entitled to your opinions, but are you entitled to your facts?".)

Anyway, you're right, there was very little reportage about the SARS epidemic in Irish newsapers at the time. I had to rely on BMJ basically for any half-decent information. In fact, SARS coincided with the Special Olympics being held in Ireland at the time, and I remember what news reportage there were in the Irish papers were all showing the latant racism there were in Irish society, e.g. about how the athletes from HK and Taiwan were not being welcomed by their host towns. Which was just so sad.

But make not mistake, most educated Irish people do recognise that the Irish papers do a very poor job when it comes to proper international coverage. That's why the circulation figures for the UK papers here are still quite high.

In fact, the other major reason I stopped reading the Times newspapers was alos because they made the decision about a decade ago to concentrate more on Irish news and basically have a completely different edition in Ireland to the one that they have in Britain. I thought then, if I were to get Irish news, I'd have opted for one of the Irish local papers, so I switched wholeheartedly to Guardian and became one of its many devoted readers, appreciative of both its breadth of international coverage as well as its progressive editorial policy, while maintaining its integrity when it comes to factual reporting (The clearest example of this is the Guardian's recent expose of Ian Tomlinson's death at the hands of the G20 police, which I blogged about).

The Man Who Loves Everton said...

Snowdrops,

Thanks for your comment.

To be honest, I can't compare.

(a) I don't read Guardian. I picked up some Guardians left by the people on train (when I was in London) sometimes. But I just found that i had difficulty in reading the articles. Probably because I was not used to the arrangement. I just didn't like it.

(b) I have been The Times reader only for three years.

Having read yours, maybe I'll try next time. In fact, Mr Tsao Chip is a devoted readers of Guardian.

Yes, i don't like that The Times I can buy in Ireland is different from the one I can get in the UK. They changed it two years ago. I'm not sure if the change is good or not.

It's good because all the international news are on the front pages. It's bad because it doesn't have Times 2. And not coloured - sometimes very difficult to read the charts and figures.

The Man Who Loves Everton said...

Ah, one more thing, I like The Times because it is so pro-Britain. In a way like Little Britain.

May said...

alert! don't panic...i mean the swine flu thing...

take care anyway...