I was walking in the Borders and Northumberland all last week and missed all the media hype about the Original Mountain Marathon. I did see one headline that greatly amused me though. 

“Hundreds forced to spend the night on a mountainside,” it said and I couldn’t help but smile. Isn’t that the whole point of a two-day mountain marathon? That report just showed up the lazy journalism and lack of knowledge that produced a grossly sensationalized account of the event. And that, sadly, was the tone of most of the newspapers and radio reports. I was surprised that no-one, (usually a politician), had been wheeled out to say that mountain marathons should be banned!

 I did hear the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 and they might have had a point in the suggestion that the cost of the “perceived” rescue, some £10,000, might have been better spent, but no-one appears to object to the huge amounts of money being spent on those who insist on smoking themselves to death, or drinking themselves to death. Racing Formula One sports cars is inherently much more dangerous than fell running yet this weekend Lewis Hamilton will became a hero if, as expected, he wins the World Championship. More people die in ordinary road-running marathons than in fell races, so why is it that whenever folk choose to enjoy their sport in the mountains the popular press condemns them? If you sail round the world single-handed chances are you will be knighted. Climb a mountain solo and you are accused of being a nutter, risking the lives of mountain rescue personnel.

Or could it be that the 2008 OMM has become a victim of a hard-pressed, under funded and overworked media. When journalists are doing the job of three, which is the current state of play within most of the UK’s newspaper groups, corners will be cut and pressure is always applied to make mundane stories more sensational than they are. The current Jonathon Ross story is a good example of that. Or could it be that the nanny-state in which we live is governed to such a degree that risk-taking, in any form, whether it be in the stock exchange or in the mountains, is condemned by one and all. If that is the case, then God help us all.

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