바카라Chernobyl is like the war of all wars. There바카라s nowhere to hide. Not underground, not underwater, not in the air.바카라
바카라Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
바카라The sparrows disappeared from our town in the first year after the accident. They were lying around everywhere바카라in the yards, on the asphalt. They바카라d be raked up and taken away in the containers with the leaves. They didn바카라t let people burn the leaves that year, because they were radioactive, so they buried the leaves. The sparrows came back two years later.
바카라Excerpt from Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich, who received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature 바카라for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time바카라.
In such times, you remember the stories. They say flowers became radioactive then. A newlywed Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of fireman Vasily Ignatenko, was told her husband is a nuclear reactor in the opening story of this book.
바카라He바카라s dying.바카라 And she says to me: 바카라What did you expect? He got 1,600 roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose. You바카라re sitting next to a nuclear reactor.바카라
On April 26, 1986, the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl power station blew apart and thousands of men who were ill-equipped were sent to contain the situation.
We seem to be on the brink of another war. And this war, if it escalates, will be far more lethal than we can imagine. Perhaps this is why we must return to stories to understand the horrors of a nuclear explosion. People have been killed on both sides. The 바카라imposed war바카라 will lead to a crisis, that might lead to a larger war.
In a newsroom, you must grapple with all possibilities and impossibilities. The impossibility today is the mere acknowledgement that wars kill people like me and you. The possibility that looms over is a nuclear war or at least an explosion. Remember the Fat Man that was dropped on Nagasaki and killed, within a minute, at least 30,000 people. Chernobyl is another such story. A story of wreckage, but we are unhindered in our zeal to wage wars that we build up to be the solution for existential threats that we assign and attribute to ourselves and market to the people. Truth is the first and foremost casualty in such cases.
For months, we바카라ve watched bombs fall, homes burn, children die in Gaza, while leaders call for more war. Now, we are seeing another war between Israel and Iran and hoping that it doesn바카라t escalate, because we know from history that there will be no place to hide for many.
What does it mean for a newsroom then? The last few days have been sad, hectic and sometimes, I wonder if we are becoming numb to everything. Over 270 died in Air India바카라s June 12 crash. Investigations continue, but for grieving families, closure may never come, presenting a painful reality.
A newsroom writes history바카라s first draft바카라not propaganda, but stories of suffering. As we mourned the crash victims, news broke: Israel attacked Iran, and Western media rushed to justify it.
We have seen the reportage and the language used to make people believe in the justification for a war. The 2003 Iraq War, hyped by media over WMDs, was called 바카라illegal바카라 by UN chief Kofi Annan in 2004. Which war is legal? In the US, pro-Palestinian voices face arrests and deportation, with solidarity often mislabelled as anti-Semitism and protest deemed unlawful. In such times, the radical act of being unapologetically present is the only dutiful one, the only correct course of action.
The media is either a target, like Iran바카라s IRIB hit by Israel, or an auxiliary, like Indian anchors spreading fake news during 바카라Operation Sindoor바카라 after the brutal Pahalgam terror attack.
There is pressure on the media which doesn바카라t buy into the propaganda. This is also an information war and it is difficult for us to get to any truth in a post-truth world where images can be manipulated easily with new technologies and conflicts are for the control of resources, for greed and for power.
In postmodern conflicts, information is power. There are new standards for the coverage and representation of war and these are imposed most of the time and often undermine the credibility of the media because we are all complicit in this strange interlocking of political and military power, war industries and corporate media.
That바카라s why the propaganda discourse is now paraded as the one and only truth and journalists who want to search for the truth are often targeted and persecuted.
Language is an ideological tool. Some journalists echo official lines; others focus on human suffering바카라war바카라s real story. Objectivity is demanded, yet how can one be neutral about death? Reporting must move beyond duty to conscience. What we write and see shapes public opinion, which alone can resist war바카라s normalisation and delegitimise its violence.
I am rereading the book about Chernobyl and hoping that flowers don바카라t become radioactive ever again. That바카라s my journalism. No war is heroic.
This issue of Outlook is for those who lost their loved ones in the plane crash. We changed the cover thrice while putting this issue together because any war is a reflection of us as people and people dying anywhere are our people. This is to say we are here.
