I have just finished reading the aut0biography of the news reporter John Simpson, most frequently seen on the BBC reporting from some of the world’s most dangerous ‘hotspots’ during the last few decades of the 20th C.
I approached the book, as I always do, with naivety, assuming the author is truthful and should be believed in whatever he says. I read with great interest since Simpson writes entertainingly and describes a world, that of the news reporter, of which I have no experience.
He described working for the BBC, starting as a nonentity in radio and working up to being head of the BBC foreign news department, when his face was seen on TV reports from Baghdad, during the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia during its break-up etc. etc.
One of the things that interested and surprised me was his description of working for the BBC. I had the impression, as surely most of the British do, of the BBC as being a bit fuddy-duddy, slow and doesn’t pay well, but probably relatively benign as an employer ---- compared to its commercial competitors, that is. However, according to Simpson, an organisation which is more internally competitive would be hard to imagine. I thought I had encountered competitiveness of a high order in my working life, but this beat anything in my experience by a long way.
Similarly, but less surprisingly, he described the world of reporters as being at least as competitive as they vied to get the best stories/pictures, access to the most important people, exclusives and so on. He described some reporters taking huge, unnecessary risks, chancing their lives and cheating their colleagues to get ahead of the pack.
He also described his life of travel and some of the places he visited e.g. the Amazon to do a documentary about the Amazonian Indians — not all of his life has been spent in danger zones.
Somewhere in the middle of the book I found myself (I have travelled a lot and there are still many places I would like to visit) thinking that maybe going up the Amazon wasn’t for me after all. Wherever Simpson went I found myself going off the idea of going there myself………
………finally, when I became aware of all the negative thoughts that were going through my head, I got a grasp of Simpson and what he is about.
Although Simpson does describe himself as competitive — no-one would criticise him for that, so why shouldn’t he? — he portrays himself as one of the less ruthlessly competitive, as relatively mild and benign. However, the truth is that Simpson leads the pack in competitiveness. He is the biggest shark swimming in shark infested waters. But, as is commonly the case, when he looks at the rest of the world he sees a reflection of himself. He ascribes his own motives to others.
So what Simpson is describing is not the reality of the BBC and the world of news reportage. He is describing HIMSELF ---- and he reveals himself to be about as highly competitive as it is possible to be. Ruthless.
At one point he writes: “Like an ancient Roman, I would prefer to get out while I’m ahead; and if that involves taking my chances in an air was of extraordinary proportions, so be it. I wouldn’t like to be forgotten too soon or ignored too completely, but once the party is over, it seems to me that one should know when to leave.”
That about sums up Simpson: if he cannot win then life is not worth living, and, in his view, may as well ‘fall on your sword’ ---- so, OF COURSE he is going to be the BIIGEST shark he is able to be ---- it is that or death.
There are several things here. For one thing, he does not actually ‘enjoy’ swimming with sharks — he enjoys winning, but would like to do so without having to inhabit shark infested waters. But what he does not realise is that this is HIS perception, HIS reality. He has created his own reality.
If you are a shark, little fish will avoid you. After a while you will find that the only things remaining in your vicinity are other sharks. i.e. if you are a shark yourself, then you condemn yourself to shark infested waters.
In addition, he will ‘see’ competitiveness everywhere. Because he is so competitive himself he will ascribe that motive other people whether appropriate or not. Thus he builds a perception of a world which is competitive on HIS scale, and far more competitive than it really is.
Another thing is that, with the focus on winning, Simpson does not actually CARE about what he is doing. He may say he “loves” news reporting, but he does not. He happens to be good at news reportage and so is a winner and it is winning that he likes — well, that and the kudos boys get from going to dangerous places and catching appalling things happening and showing it off to the rest of the world. Basically, he would be just as “happy”, or rather he would get “high” on any activity that he could win at, and if it had a suitably laddish impressiveness, then so much the better.
The bad thing is that, firstly, it means the man does not care for anything, does not care how he does things and, secondly, he lives in a very, very small world, a very poor world, a very dull, colourless world. The two go together. A healthy, normal person will do a thing like news reportage because they LIKE news reportage. That means it does not matter if they loose or win, does not matter if they get paid for it — they will do it as a hobby because they like doing it.
[There is an aside to make here, about the fallacy of the idea that competition breeds excellence. You get excellent when you practice something you are INTERESTED in. When a person is competitive they are interested in WINNING. They become good at winning. They are not interested in the medium through which they win, whether news reportage or music or whatever, so they do NOT become good at that.
In our competitive world people think and believe that top musicians and artists etc excel at what they do. People are only able to think so because they have not seen how incomparably much better cooperative artists, musicians etc are. We have no cooperative society (apparently) to compare ourselves with.]
So, because he does not care about news reportage he feels life would not be worth living if he was not a winner. Life has SO, SO much more to offer, but Simpson will never find it. This competitiveness condemns him to poverty, poverty of mind and spirit, poverty of an empty world, a world of “nothing is worth doing if you can’t win at it”. If he had a healthy, cooperative mind he would experience the world as a place of endless interest and opportunity, where both of these attributes grow with every passing year.
Finally: that feeling I had of being discouraged from doing things and going places — this is the effect competitive people have on those around them. After all, it is in their interest to discourage others from following in their footsteps and maybe becoming a threat to their supremacy. Also, they are concerned to maximise their own achievement in the eyes of the world, so they paint a picture of the world as a very dangerous and difficult place.
The problem for THEM is that they come to believe their own lies and become ever more fearful of the world, or find themselves withdrawing into an ever smaller comfort zone.
The problem for others is learning to recognise the negative effects they experience when encountering such people, either in reality or on the printed page and to be able to deal with them, to excise them from their minds.
Also, what value does Simpson’s reportage have? With such a poor grasp of reality, bias towards to wildly exaggerating danger, aggression and the like, are his reports likely to do more than cause trouble and generate antipathy between peo0ple?