Mark Nowak on the BBC

The BBC recently featured poet, activist, and former Harriet blogger Mark Nowak on their piece about the media's fascination with coal mining disasters. You can listen here until Saturday, when the BBC will take it out of rotation:

[The] fascination in the media with mining disasters is nothing new. In 1936 in Moose River, Canada, a mine entrance collapsed when a tree fell over the shaft. It was assumed the men were dead. Five days later a faint tapping was heard. Canadian radio sent a journalist, J, Frank Willis, to start a live hourly broadcast from the head of the mineshaft, which was carried on 650 radio stations across North America. This was three quarters of a century ago and a turning point in radio history.

The fear and exploitation of fear of being trapped underground - from real life to the stories of Edgar Allen Poe - is reflected here, using sounds, media archive, the words of the mining poet and blogger Mark Nowak, coal miner Willie McGranaghan, and Newfoundland sound man Chris Brookes. The very natural fear nascent in all of us of being buried alive, and the contradictions in the low status dangerous work of the miner, and the treasure it produces, are powerful themes which create the most compelling horror fiction and news stories alike.