Editorial: Beginning at Penguin News
The first editorial of Nicholas Roberts for Penguin News.
I’m excited to arrive in post as Deputy Editor of our newspaper. Ours because the Penguin News has always been present in my household, likely in the same way that it’s been present in yours - either since childhood if you have been here since your youth, or hopefully at least since you’ve moved to the Falklands if you’ve more recently set foot here. As such I want us to get properly introduced before I get onto diving more deeply into personal thoughts and feelings in future editorials.
When I was younger I wanted to be a writer (after your typical stints of wanting to be an astronaut or an inventor), then like most people who wanted to be writers as children and teenagers I got jaded and decided that I wanted to be a journalist (after a stint of wanting to be a rock star while waiting tables and tending bar in London).
You may have seen me before I came to Penguin News, either at the Chamber of Commerce or Falklands Radio prior to that – having been in the UK for my studies of music in the years before returning to the Islands. With these prompts hopefully some of you are already at least vaguely familiar with the strange, new face adorning the top of this week’s editorial column, if not then I hope we get familiar soon. In any case, as I’ve alluded to already, I’m excited.
I’m excited because the status quo is breaking down in 2020. Between coronavirus, Brexit having moved along, and more thoughts and words being dedicated to the rights and wrongs of the current political and social systems of the world, it’s an exciting time to be in a job that allows one to dedicate time to just finding things out. Seeing what the facts are, where “alternative facts” abound, interviewing and sharing the opinions or visions of my peers, and making my own opinions known in long-winded writings like this one.
When making my own opinions known I find it especially easy to talk about the environment, social injustices, and the arts. I’m often deeply distressed by news of what we’re doing to the planet, what we’re allowing to be done to our fellow humans, and what some of our fellow humans are doing to us – whether directly or indirectly. Most recently, locally, I find myself fascinated with houses, where we’ll live in the years ahead as the population grows; with higher education, where now-young people will go for future studies and how good those places of higher-learning will be after budget cuts have wrung them dry and teachers from around the world have been alienated; and with quality of life, providing those little (sometimes, maybe, not entirely necessary) things which gradually add up to everyone being a little bit happier.
I’ll write about all these issues from my position here, probably more than once, but that’s for later. For now, I’m excited.