This week BNR is reporting on the 1,000th column by foreign commentator Bernard Hammelburg. Throughout the week, BNR repeats memorable columns from this impressive collection being offered today at the Center for Sound & Vision. Here you will find the official column number one thousand.
1000
How do you create a column? It’s a wonderful cocktail of facts and opinions. Most of the energy is fact-checking. But I agree with Mark Twain: “when you have the facts, you can twist them as you please.” After all, you should find some of these facts in one column. One could say: objectivity is the enemy of the column. Or – even Mark Twain – ‘the only truth you can rely on is advertising’.
The BNR listener is not astray and wants to hear facts and opinions about tangible and relevant events. I’ve resolutely avoided topics like Belize’s foreign policy or the Guatemalan coffee farmer’s carbon-neutral working method in the last 999 columns, and we’ll continue to do so.
What a column also needs to do is demystify and occasionally expose. When we are dragged by politics into a senseless and insane war in Afghanistan, or a questionable adventure in Libya, or a doomed mission in Mali, or the purchase of very expensive F-35 fighters that some sides want intact. confirm nuclear weapons, or if we pretend we can decouple our economy from China. Or if we have to listen to nonsense like “a smart lockdown” or “the need for herd immunity” or – more ridiculously – the illusion of the “new normal”. Or if we fail to see that Ukraine is ultimately more vulnerable than Russia.
In these cases, the columnist replaces fairy tales with facts. And then he thinks about it.
Mark Twain again. He called journalists “a horde of ignorant, self-satisfied idiots who failed as ditch-diggers or cobblers and ended up in journalism on their way to the hospice.” He may very well be right about this. But I’m still enjoying it.
Listen to all of Bernard Hammelburg’s columns.
Source: BNR
Sharon Rock is an author and journalist who writes for 24 News Globe. She has a passion for learning about different cultures and understanding the complexities of the world. With a talent for explaining complex global issues in an accessible and engaging way, Sharon has become a respected voice in the field of world news journalism.
