London, a city where the rain tastes of gin and regret, watches with one bloodshot eye as the BBC sends its finest into the Venezuelan abyss. The worst-hit zone, a place where hope goes to die and the currency is worth less than a politician's promise, is now the backdrop for a masterclass in British journalism. Our license fee at work, ladies and gentlemen, funding the sort of reporting that makes dictators nervous and ministers choke on their canapés.
The reporter, a man whose accent alone could slice through the Caracas humidity, stands before a pile of rubble that was once a hospital. He gestures with a hand that has probably never held a spade, but by God, it holds a microphone with the righteous fury of a thousand angry pensioners. "This," he intones, "is where the state failed its people." Cue dramatic pause, the kind that would make Shakespeare weep into his ale.
And what does this achieve? Does the rubble reassemble itself into a functioning clinic? Do the shelves miraculously fill with medicine? No. But we, the British public, sit smug in our damp sitting rooms, nodding sagely. We are holding power to account, damn it. We are the conscience of the world, wrapped in a trench coat and wearing sensible shoes.
The government of Venezuela, predictably, denounces this as 'imperialist propaganda.' The BBC, predictably, issues a statement about 'impartiality and truth.' And I, predictably, pour myself another gin. The ice cubes clink like tiny, indifferent bells.
This is the theatre of the absurd, my friends, played out on a stage of desolation. But don't worry, the BBC will follow up with a segment on the resurgence of knitting in the Home Counties, restoring the cosmic balance. Because British journalism doesn't just report the news. It marinates it in a sauce of moral superiority, serves it cold, and calls it dinner.
So raise a glass to the reporters, the cameramen, the sound technicians who risk their lives to bring us images we will forget by the time the news cycle restarts. They are the true heroes, the martyrs of the Fourth Estate. And we, the grateful audience, will reward them with a twitterstorm of outrage, a hashtag or two, and then a return to our regularly scheduled programming of Bake Off and stiff upper lips.
Holding power to account, indeed. The only power being accounted here is the sheer force of our collective self-regard. Cheers.
