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In the media, you get a lot of press releases. A lot. Politicians churn out opinions or flag plinth appearances. Various European agencies. Money advisors. Every day is world something day. Climate change campaigns. Upcoming Netflix films. Advocacy groups. Relationship experts. Interior design experts. Wellness experts. There are a lot of wellness experts: so many that it's amazing that wellness is not now a universal condition. Which would relieve us of the need for wellness experts.
Most of them come from PR agencies which seem to operate on a bulk basis: the more press releases they fire out, the higher the chance that some media organisation will give them some coverage. Others come from private individuals. It can be a person who is trying to raise awareness of a particular cause by going on what seems suspiciously similar to a very nice holiday. Or someone who has self-published a book. Or people trying to raise money: for a local amenity or a desperately ill family member. Sometimes, they are heart-breaking to read.
They come in every day and collectively form a clamour for attention, a wall of need: each one arguing that their issue is uniquely deserving of publicity, perhaps without realising how many others are making the same argument.
Yet there’s only so much time or print space, so the media organisation has to sift through them, using various criteria. Is this an issue that’s already been covered recently? Is this simply a request for a free advert? Might that book be full of libels? The majority get ignored.
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Presumably, the deluge of requests is the same – or considerably more intense – for politicians. They probably don’t get contacted by many wellness experts, but no doubt they are daily pressurised by advocacy groups, businesses and individuals who all have a case to make for time, action or money. The majority are, let’s assume, completely deserving of what they are looking for. Yet the politician only has so much time and attention and has to go through a similar process of winnowing out what issues to pursue.
This should be the part when I produce some clever suggestion as to how to fix this; or point to a country where they do it better. But I can't. I'm not that clever
The criteria might be different though: because no single politician can affect much change by themselves. No matter how deserving the cause, they have to calculate what might attract the support of other politicians; and no more than the rest of us, different politicians have different priorities. Thus, deals have to be done, compromises have to be made. Those who get something rarely get everything they were looking for. Many get nothing.
It’s the bearpit of market economics, enforced upon people who are often just trying to help others. It forces the desperate and the vulnerable to effectively compete with each other, to learn that the only way to get any sort of a result is to shout louder than the others. Charities have to professionalise, because well-meaning amateurs don’t get anywhere.
Due to the obvious reasons, there’s probably more of this going on than ever before. Groups and people are looking for help who never have previously. And while competition is fine if you’re shopping for shoes, it’s a terrible system for people who are going through a tough time and asking for immediate help.
Ireland isn't unique in this. Most democracies operate this way. Of course, governments have finite resources. Priorities have to be assigned. But under the current system – or lack of a system – you don't get help based on your level of need, but how polished your messaging is. It's survival of the slickest: the opposite of what it's supposed to be.
This should be the part when I produce some clever suggestion as to how to fix this; or point to a country where they do it better. But I can’t. I’m not that clever. But there must be people who are. Because virtually no one benefits from this. Apart from PR agencies.