Shouting from my shed

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Living in a multi media age

I am like the old lady who swallowed a fly.

I write this blog to build a readership.

I build a readership to buy my books.

I sell my books to spread the word to generate more speaking engagements. I do talks to earn money. I earn money to fund the next expedition. I go on new expeditions to generate material for my blog. I write this blog to build a readership…

This conundrum was illustrated recently during the Three Peaks Challenge that I did with injured soldier Phil Packer and BBC presenter Kate Silverton. On that trip media coverage was critical: it was the point of the whole project. We were raising funds and awareness for Sport Relief. Publicity is also important for Kate and her career, and for Phil for his own fundraising plans.

You can only generate publicity if you are connected to the outside world. It is no longer acceptable, as it was in 1953, to wait weeks for news of an ascent of Everest. Today’s public demands to know what is happening all the time, preferably live, and through a mesmerising flow of channels.

What this meant for our climb up three of Britain’s most beautiful mountains was that the trip turned into a quest for mobile phone signal. “I’mve got signal! Quick! Phone x, y and z now!”

We summitted Scafell Pike in cloud rather than glorious sunshine because some Daily Mail journalist on the phone had been trying to lead Kate with invidious questions about avalanche risks, desperately trying to spin a disaster story out of our climb.

Back at the foot of the mountain Phil and Kate were unable to collapse into well-earned sleep. They were too busy filing to a voracious media who wanted MORE, they wanted EXCLUSIVES, and above all they wanted it NOW.

Finally, at the end of the challenge, when we were all safely down from Snowdon there was no time to savour the achievement. We did not all sit around together basking in the experience. Again it was a frantic melee of Press Releases and phone interviews.

I fully understood all this for it is an extreme version of my own life. I spend a lot of time on my trips Tweeting or posting blog entries, and I chase journalists for articles when I have finished.
It is very easy amongst all this to lose the point of the whole trip, to forget about the wilderness, solitude, simplicity, and a world away from laptops and mobile phones.

But expeditions are my job these days and I must earn money from what I do. That is why my aim from this summer’s expedition to Iceland is to generate a series of short films for online distribution and for use in my lectures. Little by little, and slowly, I am trying to build up my skills and experience with an eye to one day creating expedition documentaries for television.

But the Three Peaks was a cautionary tale for me. I need to keep in my mind WHY I love doing this stuff. I do the trips for the doing of them. That must remain my priority.

I am aware that compromise is needed to feed the media beast, that I must sacrifice some part of myself on its altar. But I must ensure that certain inviolable aspects of what I do remain enshrined and cannot be compromised.

Turning off mobile phones during sunset on Scafell Pike may just have become my guiding principle.

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Comments

  1. There will always be conflict like this, no matter how much you love your job. The key is to find a balance that works for you. I find it important to compartmentalize areas of my passion or job. For example you have your personal projects (expeditions where you could cut the cord completely) and you have your professional expeditions where you realize that you have to adjust your perception and expectations for the trip to accommodate other peoples needs.

    Good luck and I am so very excited to see some of your online videos.
    This is something I have been working on myself. Its a tricky process but the potential is all there.

    Reply
  2. i respect you ..thats it !!

    Reply

 
 

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Shouting from my shed

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