In the last five days, snow in London has been the theme of conversation for many people, and the theme of almost every national and local newspaper in Britain. From tabloids to broadsheets, they've all said something about it, but what is it that they're all missing? Are they saying all there is to say about the snow?
When it comes to snow, different newspapers have different prospectives, points of view, and they focus on different things. Such is the case of the
Guardian, a left-wing newspaper that directed their articles to the educational effects of the snow on children. The
Financial Times, focused on the huge economic impact that the closure of businesses in London due to the weather conditions had on Britain's economy in times of recession and the
Sun, being the UK's biggest tabloid and having most of the UK newspaper readers, focused on the fun stuff that the snow brought to the citizens of London. Other newspapers such as the
Daily Mail... Well, let's just say that they always manage to focus on the most negative prospective of every event.
The Guardian's Tuesday edition states that London lost almost two billion pounds in business and that it would take some time until the city could go back to normal. The same Guardian's Wednesday edition was dedicated to the snow's effects on education, stating that more than 8,000 schools were partially closed and how this government's decision could affect children. The Guardian believes that by leaving children at home when the situations around them become a little harder, we're telling them to hide, lay back and relax when things become more difficult. Personally speaking, I don't wonder why people love to make every excuse not to go back to work during very minor situations.
Ironically and taking into consideration that the Sun is one of the most sensational newspapers in Britain, to my point of view, it was the most honest newspapers of all. The Sun showed in their Tuesday front page two pictures, one of people waiting in line under the falling snow for a train that had no signals of showing up any time soon, and another picture of people playing and having fun in the snow. On top of these two united pictures was a very simple but funny headline that said - "The Good" written on top of the picture with the people having fun and "The Bad" written on top of the picture of the people waiting in line for a train under the snow.
All of these newspapers did a good job on reporting the event as it happened and showing how some people were affected by the snow. The Guardian reported that: "In Yorkshire four teenagers were injured in a sledging accident at a country park. Two of them are believed to be badly when their makeshift sledge carried through two fences."
However, none of these newspapers focused their articles or even mentioned anything about how to improve and equipped those cities that were affected by the snow with machinery personnel and the equipment necessary to prevent 8,000 schools from closing and London's financial structure from loosing almost two billion pounds when it snows back again.
This week's snow storm isn't something that just happened because mother earth just felt like snowing today, or because it is something that happens every once in a while. We live in times of climate changes and it has been scientifically proved that in times of global warming, after the earth has gotten very hot, it tries to cool itself by minimizing the temperature, and this could sometimes cause a glacial era.
I'm not saying that London is going to freeze and that we're all going to die because of the cold weather, what I'm saying is that what we experienced this week was just a warning of what can happen later on, in a not-far-away future. I'm extremely confident that we were just lucky to only experienced one day of snow. What would have happened if it had snowed for a whole week? How many schools would have been closed and for how long? How much money would have London lost in this time of recession? Would all this have done any good to Britain now that we're passing through a global economic crisis? I don't think so.
Of course we can't prevent the snow from falling, and sometimes it is very hard to predict when it is exactly going to fall again, but what we can do is prepare ourselves, and prepare our cities so that we don't have to suffer that much when this kinds of climate changes happen again.
And this is what journalists should have said, and what newspapers should have focused on: The government should make an investment to provide the city of London, and all of those cities affected by the snow with machinery and personnel to prevent further economic losses and schools from closing.
Sun article used to write this story:
Daily Mail article used to write this story:
The British opposition leader David Cameron's six-year-old son has died this morning at St Mary's Hospital, located in Paddington, London, the BBC News Website has reported today.
