How I became a clever girl

A certain yellow-bordered magazine played a big part in this writer’s education.

THE notice came in December. And tears threatened because it was yet another reminder of Dad and his continuing influence on my life, even after his death last August.

The scrap of paper that could play havoc on my emotions was the notice to renew his subscription to the National Geographic magazine.

This was Dad’s favourite reading material, along with Reader’s Digest and the newspapers.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how our family’s reading habit was formed: Dad made sure he filled our home with books, magazines, encyclopaedias and special editions like Time-Life’s Great Ages of Man and its Science and Nature Libraries, which I devoured.

Our first issue of National Geographic was the January 1971 edition. Dad kept every copy of the magazine and the collection is now in my house.

Growing up with National Geographic was a privilege. Not that my siblings and I realised it as kids.

We took it for granted that every month, we could look forward to reading the latest discoveries and findings in science, archaeology, palaeontology, medicine, wildlife conservation, space exploration, climate change – you name it, National Geographic had it.

Every story came beautifully illustrated with graphics, maps and those amazing photographs which National Geographic is famous for. Through text and pictures, we vicariously visited many countries and far-flung places. And that’s how my mind was opened up and I became a clever girl.

By clever, I mean my interest in and curiosity about a lot of things was piqued and my general knowledge expanded.

I trusted what National Geographic had to teach me so much, it led me to challenge my history teacher in secondary school.

That was the year we studied the voyages of Captain James Cook.

My school history book and teacher stated that 67°15’S was the most extreme southern latitude Cook’s ship, the HMS Resolution, reached as it circumnavigated the Antarctica.

But I knew differently: in National Geographic’s September 1971 issue, an article titled, Captain Cook: the Man who mapped the Pacific, showed he reached 71°10’S on his second voyage in 1774.

And I confidently stated as much in my homework and got marked wrong!

I was so incensed and convinced I was right because National Geographic said so, I wrote to the magazine at its Washington D.C. address explaining my predicament.

It took a while – it was snail mail in those days – and to my delight, a letter dated June 12, 1975, arrived from Lesley B. Rogers of the Research Department.

The typewritten letter assured me I was right, citing the most authoritative source, Cook himself, from his journal entries.

I showed the letter to my teacher but she had never heard of the National Geographic Society or the magazine! Still, she grudgingly acknowledged my determination to check with my source for my information.

And that, thinking back, was a quality I already had, albeit raw and unpolished, that would hold me in good stead as a journalist.

Some of the stories that have stayed with me are those on the awesome Mayan and Inca civilisations, climate change, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, SkyLab, humpback whales, the Celts and the hermit kingdom of Bhutan.

But even this highly venerated magazine, like many other reputable publications, could not maintain its readership and profitability in the face of plummeting subscriptions in recent years.

In September 2015, the National Geographic Society, which was founded as a non-profit organisation in 1888 “for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge”, handed over its major assets, including the magazine, to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox.

This shocked many of the magazine’s loyal supporters who feared the increased influence of a media mogul who was said to be deeply conservative and a non-believer in global warming and climate change.

“Over the last few years the National Geographic Society has been slowly vanishing into the Murdoch family’s Fox media empire like a gazelle being swallowed by a python in one of the former’s famous videos.

“This month the consummation will be complete and Fox will take full control of National Geographic’s major assets – its stake in the TV network, its flagship magazine, its TV studio – in a US$725mil deal,” decried a November 2015 The Guardian article headlined, How Fox ate National Geographic, on the deal that led to the formation of National Geographic Partners.

But the first deal that was inked between Fox and National Geographic goes back years when they joined forces to own and operate the National Geographic TV Channels.

At that time, a former National Geographic worker described that JV in 2001 as “inviting Fox into the henhouse”.

He wasn’t entirely wrong as there was a “culture clash” between NGS executives and the TV channel staff.

Critics felt that the society’s longstanding focus on science, exploration and discovery had been overtaken and undermined by the channel’s offerings on more sensational topics like paranormal investigations, sex and crime and reality show formats.

The reality, however, was that it was the extremely profitable network, not the respected magazine, that was pumping blood into NGS.

But this dissonance in identity was hurting the overall brand.

It was this concern that eventually led to National Geographic Partners, where Fox has the majority share. But who was appointed as chief operating officer is interesting: Murdoch’s son James.

The youngest of Rupert’s three children from his first marriage, James, 44, is supposedly a “tree hugger” and not quite like the rest of his family.

He and his wife, Kathryn, are said to be the most environmentally progressive of the Murdoch clan, running Quadrivium, a non-profit foundation that supports scientific education and the protection of oceanic fisheries and other natural resources.

The society holds 27% and controls half the seats on the new board. But by taking a step back from the media business, it means it should be able to go back to focusing on its philanthropic support of science, exploration and discovery.

And so my yellow-bordered magazine has been given a new lease.

Last year, it continued to cover important topics like food waste, real CSI, the new Europeans, the fight against blindness and last month, it courted controversy by putting a nine-year-old transgender on the cover of its United States edition.

My edition with the same cover story, Gender Revolution, shows a less provocative image, that of nine young people professing different gender variations.

I’m not sure Dad would have approved because he did belong to that black-and-white with no shades of grey in between generation. But he would be pleased my family and I are still reading his favourite magazine and learning lots. In this age of fake news, there is nothing like a trusted source.

Has National Geographic covered Malaysia? Yes, indeed, which is what Aunty will share in her next column. Feedback most welcome: [e-mail]