TV element

The weather conditions of the past few days received absolute priority in the reporting of all media, not only in Serbia but throughout Europe. The reason was incredible heat or precipitation followed by stormy winds, and nature reminded us once again how cruelly it can respond to human greed, arrogance and self-destructiveness, which results in climate change.

Accidents and disasters are interesting topics for television because, in the language of digital media, they are clickable. This, by the way, is a finer term for sensationalist reporting that continuously holds the attention of users. Almost overnight, every storm got a name, but also some kind of parascientific interpretation. The strangest coin is "supercell storm" which sounds just a little different from "Mercury retrograde", which at one time the media blamed for every evil that could happen to us. These parascientific nonsense actually cover up the fact that man, by his action or inaction, has a negative impact on nature, changes the temperature, chemical composition, geography, destroys the flora and fauna, and the consequence is a changed living environment. The reason, of course, is profit, which is constantly presented to citizens as industrial or economic development. It is also a paradox that the consequences of decades of neglect by the developed are felt most terribly by the underdeveloped and the poor.

Our media, unfortunately, took over the topic of the storm from those whose jurisdiction it would be. In this sense, television proved to be an important medium, but with two clearly divided principles. These days it could be seen in the examples of reporting on fires throughout Greece or storms in Serbia. Commercial television continued its usual program, dealing with fire or stormy "elements" and showing images of devastated areas. In the story of the fires, it became important whether the agencies reimburse our tourists for the paid arrangements.

Believe me, if you were at least a hundred kilometers away from a fire this summer, the last thing you would think about is whether someone will return your money. The public TV service ERT has completely adjusted its program to the state of emergency, even though it has not been officially declared. Throughout the day, you have news from the scene, speeches from the head of civil protection, police and firemen, advice is given to citizens on how to behave, and you can see images from the streets of Greek cities made with thermal cameras, only to realize how hot it is in cars or in parts of the city without trees or other types of greenery. In case you find yourself in a risk zone, your mobile phone, and not only yours but all mobile phones will emit an alarm sound and you will receive a message to evacuate.

On the road from the Peloponnese to Thessaloniki, the police diverted traffic last weekend because of the fire in Attica, Volos, or Pelion, or Evia. There were large evacuations on the islands, but despite all these dramatic images, I couldn't get rid of the impression that half of Greece is at war with fire or running away from it, while the other half watches TV and entertainment shows where the order of the song alternates with the order of the story. It is the paradox of the modern world and modern media, where one target group is marketed with essential information on which your life depends, while you want to make others laugh and entertain because they are sipping frappe on their annual vacation.

Of course, Greece lives on tourism, but I have been thinking for days about the scene that could be seen this week on the Athenian highway, when a bus full of firefighters stopped at one of the rest stops and stopped and waited in line for refreshments with other tourists and domestic passengers. It was incomprehensible to me that no one wanted to let them cross the line, now I think not because of a lack of empathy and solidarity, but because of the parallel lives and information we consume. These people simply did not fit into the image of our wonderful vacation, which nothing in the world must disturb, until it reaches our hotel or apartment.

I think the situation is similar here, where viewers are afraid of a supercell storm. Where the storm has destroyed crops or orchards, the pictures are tragic, social networks and then televisions share pictures of the storm, but thank God, it's not so terrible here. Of the official warnings, the favorite is to describe the elements with colors. Thus, Serbia is half orange and half red, depending on whether you expect stormy gusts of wind, downpour, hail and thunder and lightning in your area, or whether you liked the classic summer heat with temperatures up to 40 degrees.

I noticed that in many countries recommendations are given to citizens on how to behave in order to reduce the risk of the consequences of some kind of natural disaster, and in our country, as usual, two fronts, two kinds of natural disasters, have crossed, and the border is somewhere a little south of of Belgrade.

In short, regardless of which zone you are currently in, it would be logical for the story about weather problems and advice to citizens to be given a more important place than the list of the basketball coach, the question of Neca and Beca on Pink, or the topic of gender-sensitive language on one of the commercial televisions. Unless we give exclusively male or female names to every storm that hits us.