Interview with Jon Snow (British newsreader and journalist) - "Twitter is amazing!"
Interview with Jon Snow, (British newsreader and journalist) - ‘Twitter is amazing’
Jon Snow talks to Libby Powell about Tuaregs not tweeting, reporting war crimes and the problem of guinea worm.
You have spent a lot of your career travelling – do you ever find it hard to leave home?
When the plane door closes, I really want to go. But I do sometimes hate leaving home. Sometimes I have plans and then suddenly I have to go to Egypt. Part of me is excited and part of me is sad. I miss home when things are difficult.
Matt Crossick / EMPICS Entertainment
Which crisis today do the media not talk about?
We never hear about Central America any more – El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, or Guatemala – but things are very difficult there. After the wars, there are now gangs. The gangs are growing with all the people being deported from the US. Also, people don't talk about the huge crises on the Eritrean/Ethiopian border and Somaliland.
Has social media changed the way you work?
I am very active on Twitter [@jonsnowC4]. I think it is amazing. And it has far more potential. The Arab Spring changed the way I see my work. In a way I feel more connected but there are still areas of no information. I don’t know of any Tuaregs who are tweeting at the moment.
Have you ever shaken someone’s hand and wished you hadn’t afterwards?
I have shaken Qadafi’s hand. I have shaken [1970s Ugandan dictator] Idi Amin’s hand. I have shaken the hands of a lot of people who people hate. But I feel that I can report better because I have shaken their hands. That is a terrible thing to say but it is important. I had a relationship with Idi Amin. He was a terrible killer but I could report better about him because I knew him.
Is it important to not get very involved when you report on a crisis?
It is good if you don’t look too involved with people. But sometimes there’s no option. In New Orleans, during Hurricane Katrina, we got there with a boat before any of the rescue boats. We couldn’t simply film because people were crying out for help from their roofs. There was an 85-year-old man bleeding in his bed clothes. We had no option – we had to rescue him. But that took most of our filming time so we simply filmed the rescue.
In June 2011 and March 2012 you presented the two-part documentary series Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields for [British broadcaster] Channel 4. The film was shocking and upset many people – did you have any doubts about showing it?
Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields really was new. No-one filmed the terrible massacres in Srebrenica and Rwanda. In Sri Lanka some victims filmed their own suffering. Also some of the attackers filmed rapes and attacks to show others.
We thought that, when this mobile-phone filming was verified by the UN, we had a human rights obligation to show it. The power of the film was in the pictures, even though they were not good quality. I don’t think there has ever been more shocking filming shown in current affairs.
How does it make you feel that, because you showed that documentary, more people have demanded an investigation of the war crimes?
I feel a bit ill. On the one hand you want more people to understand what happened, and on the other hand you don’t want to spoil the chance of peace. But I believe that you can’t have peace without truth first. And our documentary was part of that truth.
What is the story that you want to report that hasn’t happened yet?
I would love to report on the last person being treated for guinea worm. They have reduced the cases of guinea worm from 3.5 million in 26 countries in 1986 to 1,000 in two countries now. They say that by 2015 there will be no more cases. It is a terrible illness from drinking organisms in bad water. The organisms become 35-centimetre-long white worms that jump out of the body at the breast, the tummy, arms and legs. Not many people in the West know about it.
Do you have any ambitions?
I am one of the most ambitious people I know but I am never quite sure what that ambition is. I would love one day to do something that really affects people’s lives. I don’t think I have done that yet. I want to in the future.
As this article has been simplified, the words, text structure and quotes may have been changed. For the original, please see: http://www.newint.org/columns/finally/2013/01/01/interview-jon-snow-twitter/
