By Guest
Chris Gayle-Dalton is 24, grew up in Newham and now lives nearby. He volunteers for Community Links and is a trainee Community Organiser with Novis Scarman.
I saw this headline “Welcome to Britain, land of the rising scum….We’ve cornered the market on welfare layabouts, drug addicts and feral gangs.” And I thought, that’s not like us. It’s like they’re trying to say we’re like the US – the guns, the crime. You have got bad people in Britain, like everywhere else, but you’ve always got to look at all the other good people, who do stuff for the world, who help other people.
Like charity events, fundraising for homeless people, mums struggling who need stuff for their kids, parents who can’t take their kids to school, all the other kids who are helping, volunteering.
Even when there are problems, it’s usually more complicated than the media show. Parents who lose their kids to social services, go to homeless shelters, and when they get back on their feet their kids don’t want to know them.
Take my experience – I’ve done bad things in my life but I actually sat down and said to myself I need to change. I thought to myself yeah, I can change my life, look where I am now. I’m actually working, not earning that much but still living, supporting my family, and my family supports me. But the media doesn’t show people like me.
You need to give people chances in their life, at least one chance. Sometimes the media doesn’t do that.
[...] are portrayed as nobly struggling, while those of the present are seen as feckless scroungers. And young people often get a particularly raw deal in the [...]
Thanks Chris for your interesting post. Yes you’re right things are always more complicated and nuanced. Where is the media finding the space to do more in-depth, insightful and rigorous pieces? Is the media only interested when things go wrong rather than when they go right. I suspect they are as this is what sells. The fact that you’re working and contributing to your community and therefore to wider society isn’t the story that various media outlets want to focus on, which begs the question why do we as readers, viewers and consumers of today’s rolling 24 hour news focus more on the gossip and negativity? What role do we play?