Breaking New Ground Friday 31 December 2010

Pike River: When it happens closer to home, it's a very different story

Journalists spend their days trying to break stories. In 2010, there was a lot of ‘breaking’ going on, but almost none of it was caused by the media. In September, the ground beneath the Canterbury region shook, swelled and split. The damage: many broken vases. Perhaps, broken bones. Some business owners certainly ended up broke. But, miraculously, no deaths. But then, in November, the ground moved again. This time, beneath the Pike River Mine. It shook, it smoked, and spat out fumes. Here, the result was more devastating. Broken families, and broken trust. But the community pulled together. Yes, Greymouth and Christchurch provided the two most compelling, dramatic, moving stories of the year. But journalists had an easy job of piecing together the usual stories, in the usual order. First, the bare facts. Second, the community’s reaction. Next, the human insights. And finally, the analysis: the blame game, the hand-wringing, the inquiries – and a look at the future.

It was a strange old year for New Zealand; a country which rarely experiences an event on the scale of a national disaster. But in 2010, there was a strange sense of deja vu. Not because we had experienced a major earthquake or a mine disaster, but because we’d watched two other countries go through that hell. In January, Haiti was hit by a 7.0 magnitude quake. A quake that seems remarkably similar to Canterbury’s. A quake that killed 230,000 people. Even the Pike River Mine crisis felt familiar to begin with. In Chile in October, 33 miners were rescued. A tragedy became a triumph. Kiwis were transfixed. And while we hoped the Pike River crisis would have a similar ending, it didn’t.

It’s fair to say that most Kiwis, including myself, live comfortable lives. Yes, we’re “global citizens”, and we’re “connected” with what’s happening in many far-flung corners of the globe. And yes, we have our own share of problems. But none of those problems compare to those experienced by millions of other people around the world. If New Zealanders learn anything from 2010, I hope it is this: what we see in the media is not always the clearest version of reality, but it is a version of reality nonetheless. And reality, in many places, is brutal.

It’s too easy for Kiwis to flick on the news or flick through a newspaper. Often, we view major overseas events as if they are part of a soap opera, with plots and characters and cliffhangers. The cynic in me believes many Kiwis were only interested in the Chilean mine crisis because of the compelling twists and turns in the rescue saga. Would they live? Would they die? Did Kiwis follow that story because they cared? Or because of the drama, the tragedy and the triumph?

I can’t answer that question for all New Zealanders. But I know for sure that there was no ‘triumph’ for the 29 men who died in the depths of the Pike River Mine. It’s a story which affected all New Zealanders. It hurt because they were members of our community. The event happened on our turf, under our watch. This was not just another story or drama to play out on TV. This was reality. We mourned for 29 men who spent their last moments stuck down a mine. And yet there are millions of people living in holes around the world. Victims of conflict and poverty, many of them suffer equally tragic deaths. But for them, there is no drama, no cameras and no script. No glorious tributes, no extended news coverage, and no investigations. Sometimes I get angry at how parochial we are as a nation. But now that we’ve been reminded what it’s like to experience tragedies on a large scale, perhaps we’ll live a little bit differently in 2011.