Source: The Conversation – in French – By Krisztina Ilko, Junior Research Fellow, Queens’ College and Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
La présence d’un joueur à la peau noire sur cette illustration du _Libro del axedrez, dados e tablas_ montre en quoi les échecs échappaient aux normes de représentation de l’époque. « Libro del axedrez, dados e tablas »
Dans certains manuscrits médiévaux, des joueurs noirs et blancs s’affrontent sur l’échiquier dans un cadre d’égalité. Une iconographie surprenante qui montre comment les échecs pouvaient incarner un espace où la logique l’emportait sur les hiérarchies raciales.
Dans l’imaginaire médiéval européen, les représentations de la différence raciale étaient souvent très tranchées. Les personnes noires apparaissaient soit comme des figures exotiques et prestigieuses – saints ou souverains riches comme la reine de Saba –, soit comme des personnages dominés, jugés inférieurs aux chrétiens blancs. Pourtant, comme le montrent mes recherches, le jeu d’échecs offrait un autre regard : un espace où les joueurs pouvaient s’affronter d’égal à égal, quelle que soit leur couleur de peau.
Des éléments tirés du Libro de los juegos, sous-titré Libro de Axedrez, Dados e Tablas (Livre des échecs, des dés et des tables), un manuel de jeux réalisé pour le roi Alphonse X le Sage à Séville en 1283, ont renforcé cette idée. Le manuscrit contient 103 problèmes d’échecs, chacun accompagné d’un texte indiquant le vainqueur et d’une illustration. Ces images représentent une grande diversité de personnages, allant d’hommes juifs à des femmes musulmanes. On y voit aussi des joueurs asiatiques, blancs et noirs.
L’une des illustrations les plus frappantes montre un joueur noir et un joueur à la peau pâle face à face de part et d’autre d’un échiquier. Ce dernier a la tête rasée, signe qu’il est un clerc érudit. Pourtant, malgré ce marqueur d’intelligence, le texte indique que le joueur noir l’emportera. Dans ce « jeu de logique », la victoire revient à celui qui démontre les meilleures capacités stratégiques. Ce qui compte avant tout, c’est la puissance intellectuelle du joueur. Comme l’explique le Libro de los juegos, les échecs incarnent la sagesse, et ceux qui les étudient acquièrent la capacité de vaincre les autres.
Une autre image du manuscrit montre cinq personnages noirs entourant l’échiquier. Dans la culture visuelle médiévale occidentale, les scènes ne représentant que des figures noires sont rares et généralement associées à des connotations négatives. Ici, au contraire, elles apparaissent dans un cadre hautement intellectuel et dans une atmosphère qui semble conviviale.
« Libro de los Juegos »
Si le jeu d’échecs n’a pas fait disparaître les normes sociales dominantes en matière de préjugé racial, il a néanmoins offert aux joueurs un espace pour les remettre en question dans son propre univers ludique.
La représentation des échecs comme une rencontre entre des personnes de couleurs de peau différentes ne se limitait pas à l’Europe. Le Livre des rois ou Shâhnâmeh, poème épique retraçant l’histoire des Iraniens depuis la création du monde jusqu’à la conquête islamique, raconte ainsi l’introduction du jeu en Iran.
Selon le Shâhnâmeh, un roi indien – dont le nom n’est pas précisé – envoya une ambassade au roi sassanide avec un échiquier et un défi : en comprendre les règles ou payer un tribut. Heureusement pour le souverain, son conseiller Būzurjmihr parvint à résoudre l’énigme. Une copie du poème datant du XIVᵉ siècle situe cette scène dans un décor mongol de la fin du Moyen Âge. On y voit Būzurjmihr, à la peau plus claire, face à l’émissaire indien à la peau plus sombre.
Certains chercheurs ont soutenu que la peau sombre de ce dernier et ses « vêtements amples » visaient à souligner sa défaite. Mais plusieurs indices suggèrent une autre lecture. Sa tunique « ample » est richement ornée de dorures, contrairement à la simple robe bleue de Būzurjmihr, pourtant le plus haut diplomate de la cour. Sa peau plus foncée renvoie certes à ses origines étrangères, mais ne fait guère de lui un personnage négatif. Il apparaît au contraire comme le champion du rajah indien : celui qui transmet le jeu de logique et se présente comme le dépositaire d’un savoir indien très convoité.
Les pièces d’échecs elles-mêmes
Outre les représentations de parties d’échecs, les perceptions médiévales de la « race » peuvent aussi être étudiées à travers les pièces du jeu elles-mêmes.
Les échecs se sont diffusés à travers l’Afro-Eurasie à partir de l’Inde du VIᵉ siècle vers le reste du monde connu. Jeu de guerre, les échecs reposent sur des pièces censées représenter des soldats. Mais, au fil de leur diffusion, la forme de ces pièces a évolué, reflétant les sociétés qui les ont produites.
Par exemple, un roi d’échecs aux longs cheveux, fabriqué à Mansura ou à Multan (dans l’actuel Pakistan) au IXᵉ ou au Xᵉ siècle, reflète les idéaux de la royauté indienne. Les célèbres pièces d’échecs de Lewis, découvertes dans les Hébrides extérieures en Écosse, mais probablement sculptées en Norvège, sont quant à elles souvent considérées comme les représentations les plus emblématiques d’un jeu d’échecs médiéval. Dans cette perspective, elles ne constituent pourtant qu’un témoignage relativement tardif et géographiquement périphérique d’une tradition bien plus ancienne.
Les échecs médiévaux n’étaient pas aussi noirs et blancs que le jeu moderne. Certains échiquiers étaient blanc et rouge, ou encore bleu et or. Néanmoins, les cases alternées, tout comme les pièces elles-mêmes, étaient distinguées par des couleurs contrastées. Cela permettait de projeter sur le jeu des idées liées à la couleur de peau et aux perceptions raciales.
Un poème du XIIIᵉ siècle explique que les pièces d’échecs « sont les gens de ce monde, tirés d’un même sac, comme d’un ventre maternel, puis placés en divers endroits de ce monde ». Les pièces pouvaient ainsi représenter les différents peuples du globe. Mais l’issue de leurs affrontements sur l’échiquier restait déterminée par les règles de la logique, et non par la couleur de leur peau. Les échecs incarnaient ainsi un « monde juste », où l’intellect, plutôt que la religion ou la race, primait.
Krisztina Ilko a reçu des financements de The British Academy.
Linus Pauling was one of the most brilliant scientists of the 20th century. He won two Nobel prizes and transformed our understanding of chemical bonds and the structure of proteins. Late in his career, though, he became famous for something very different: a passionate belief that very high doses of vitamin C could help people with cancer. Many doctors scoffed. When Pauling himself later died of cancer aged 93, he was held up as a classic case of the “halo effect”: being a genius in one field doesn’t guarantee wisdom in another.
Half a century on, the story looks more complicated. Pauling was wrong in important ways, but he was not entirely wrong. Modern research is giving vitamin C a second look in cancer, and it turns out that under certain conditions it can behave less like a gentle vitamin and more like a drug.
Pauling’s vitamin C story began in the 1970s, when he teamed up with the Scottish doctor Ewan Cameron and gave patients with advanced, incurable cancer very large amounts of vitamin C – first as a drip into a vein, then as tablets. Compared with similar patients who did not get vitamin C, they reported that the vitamin‑treated group lived longer and felt better. For some, they suggested, survival could be several times longer.
Two large trials, run by the Mayo Clinic, a leading non-profit medical centre in the US, then put this to the test. The results were clear: there was no benefit.
Patients who took vitamin C pills lived no longer than those who didn’t. For most oncologists, that was the end of the matter. Vitamin C was filed away with other “alternative” remedies, and Pauling’s late-career crusade was widely seen as a sad mistake.
What neither trial’s critics nor defenders noticed at the time: Pauling and Cameron had started with vitamin C into a vein; the Mayo Clinic trials used tablets only. That matters because the gut can only absorb so much vitamin C. Once you reach a modest daily dose, the body simply stops taking in much more. Swallow as many tablets as you like, and the level of vitamin C in your blood levels off.
By contrast, a drip into a vein can raise blood levels to tens or even hundreds of times higher than tablets ever could. At those extreme levels, vitamin C starts to behavedifferentlyinside the body.
At everyday levels, vitamin C acts as an antioxidant: it mops up harmful molecules and protects our cells. At very high levels, especially around tumours, it can flip roles.
In laboratory studies, high-dose vitamin C helps generate hydrogen peroxide, a reactive substance that can damage cells. Cancer cells seem especially vulnerable because they are already under stress. They grow rapidly, often in areas with poor blood supply, and produce lots of reactive molecules of their own. Their internal “cleanup” systems are stretched thin.
Add a sudden pulse of hydrogen peroxide and many cancer cells tip over the edge: their DNA and energy machinery are damaged and they die. Normal cells, which are under less strain and have better defences, are more likely to survive. In this way, very high doses of vitamin C behave less like a daily supplement and more like a weak, selective chemotherapy drug. Crucially, the doses needed for this effect cannot be reached with tablets.
What the latest evidence shows
In people, the evidence is still early and mixed. Small trials have given high-dose vitamin C through a vein to patients with hard-to-treat cancers such as ovarian, pancreatic or brain tumours. So far, many patients can receive large doses several times a week without serious side-effects. Problems can occur, especially in people with poor kidney function or rare inherited conditions, which is why this is not a harmless wellness drip to be sold on the high street.
A few studies suggest that adding vitamin C infusions to chemotherapy may help some patients live a little longer or help with side-effects, but other studies show no clear benefit. The trials are small and varied, so we cannot draw firm conclusions.
One consistent signal is quality of life: patients given vitamin C alongside chemotherapy often report less fatigue, less pain and fewer side-effects, such as nausea. For someone with advanced cancer, that matters, even if it is not the sweeping cure Pauling once promised.
Lab work also hints at subtler roles. Vitamin C is involved in enzymes that influence how our DNA is “marked” and read, and in how cells divide and respond to low oxygen – important in cancer behaviour.
In some experiments, high vitamin C levels make cancer cells grow less aggressively and make them more sensitive to treatment. There are even early suggestions that vitamin C may help the immune system recognise and attack tumours, though this remains speculative.
Partly right
So, was Pauling right after all? The fairest answer is that he was partly right, for reasons he did not fully understand, and he exaggerated the promise. He was wrong to promote vitamin C tablets as a powerful cure for cancer. Large, careful trials have not found that swallowing high-dose vitamin C helps people with established cancer live longer. He was also wrong to present vitamin C as a near-universal remedy for many illnesses.
But he was not entirely wrong to suspect that vitamin C might have a special role in cancer treatment. He sensed, long before we could prove it, that very high doses given into a vein would behave quite differently from ordinary supplements.
Modern research has confirmed that intravenous vitamin C reaches much higher levels in the blood and has distinct biological effects. What we do not yet have are large, definitiverandomised trials showing that high-dose intravenous vitamin C clearly prolongs life for most cancer patients. Until we do, it should be seen as experimental – promising enough to study, but not proven enough to replace standard therapies. Any use belongs in clinical trials or in carefully supervised medical settings, not in clinics selling expensive “immune boosts”.
The “vitamins in cancer” story continues to evolve. If the story of vitamin C and cancer teaches us anything, it is that science rarely moves in straight lines. A bold idea, some flawed early studies, a fierce backlash – and then, years later, a quieter, more careful return to the question.
Pauling may never be fully vindicated, but neither was he simply deluded. In his enthusiasm, he may have glimpsed a sliver of truth long before the rest of us knew how to look for it.
Justin Stebbing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Giulia De Togni, Chancellor’s Fellow, School of Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh
The robot pauses at the edge of the room as an engineer checks its sensors. Then, with a soft mechanical hum, this humanoid machine begins to move. It lifts a mannequin from a bed, slowly and carefully. The engineers hold their breath.
I am in a robotics lab in Tokyo, Japan, as part of my Wellcome research fellowship. The engineers have repeated this test hundreds of times over several weeks, with mixed results.
Japan has one of the world’s oldest populations, and a strained health and care workforce. It has also long been the global leader in the development and deployment of care robots.
Government-led initiatives such as Society 5.0 and Moonshot promote a “super-smart” society in which, by 2050, robots could be integrated into everyday life. One early example is the impending trial of humanoid baggage handlers at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.
In a care sector that is globally under pressure, different types of robot – from humanoid and pet-like “companions” to more straightforward mechanical aids – could prove useful. Some help lift people, reducing physical strain on care workers. Others remind a patient to take medication, support rehabilitation exercises, and monitor their vitals.
However, my research shows there is still a big gap between staged robotic demonstrations and everyday reality.
Uniquely human skills
Many of the robots I observed were tested in carefully controlled environments. Floors were cleared, lighting was adjusted, engineers stood nearby ready to step in. In some cases, the robots’ actions were partly, if not entirely, controlled from a distance.
In contrast, real care environments are busy, unpredictable and crowded. People move suddenly. Their needs change from moment to moment. Technologies that work well in labs still struggle in these settings.
A carer can notice a change in someone’s mood and adjust how they speak. They can offer comfort without being asked. These are uniquely human skills. As one family caregiver put it: “The promise of robotic care is practical, but the experience of care is emotional – that’s where the tension lies.”
Video: Reuters.
Some family carers and professional careworkers welcomed the idea of robotic assistance, especially for physically demanding tasks like lifting. Others worried that too much reliance on machines could make care feel impersonal.
“To some older adults, these technologies are helpful tools,” said one careworker. “To others, they feel confusing, frustrating – a glimpse of a future they never asked for.”
Such perspectives are often missing from media narratives that focus on robot success stories. In Japan, these are shaped by government strategies and economic priorities. Innovation is never neutral, reflecting political agendas about how society should respond to ageing and labour shortages.
The challenges over care that societies face are not only technical but social, ethical and cultural. They raise questions about what care should be, how it is valued, and what kind of future we want. “Among families and caregivers, hope and hesitation sit side by side,” a technology developer told me. “Efficiency is often welcome, but not at the cost of losing the human touch.”
The future for care?
While Japan has been successful in exporting socially assistive robots such as Paro (a therapeutic robotic that resembles a baby seal) and the humanoid Pepper, China is rapidly expanding the market with more affordable, mass-produced technologies and humanoid innovation.
However, we are still a long way from the vision of care robots feeding, washing and otherwise supporting people in the way human carers do every day. Participants in my research, including technology developers, all agreed that robots should never fully replace human carers.
Technologies that assist with lifting, mobility and routine monitoring are the most likely to become widely used and ethically and socially accepted. In these areas, robots can complement human care rather than try to replace it.
Care is, at its core, a deeply human activity, not just a series of programmable tasks. It relies on relationships, trust and mutual understanding. Robots may support these processes, but they cannot replace them.
Additionally, some technologies are likely to remain expensive, available mainly to well-funded care homes or private users. This raises issues about access to good-quality care.
Care robot developments in Japan show what can be achieved through sustained investment and political support. But they also shed light on the large amount of work needed to ensure responsible research and innovation practices in this area.
The real question is not just what robots can do. It is what kind of care we want in the future – and how technology can support it without deepening inequalities, limiting access to good-quality care, and losing the power of human touch.
Giulia De Togni received funding from the Wellcome Trust. She is affiliated with the University of Edinburgh.
Sir David Attenborough has mastered the craft of storytelling. He has undoubtedly inspired generations of people around the globe to love and care for the natural world. And in doing so, he’s become one of the most recognisable – and most trusted – faces on our screens.
Now, he’s celebrating his 100th birthday and a lifetime of wildlife filmmaking. As part of The Conversation UK’s climate storytelling strand, four experts critique how he has influenced everything from conservation and documentary production to the communication of the biggest story of all – climate change.
Scientific insight
Ben Garrod, science broadcaster and Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement at the University of East Anglia, has presented alongside Attenborough in several landmark documentaries. Here he reflects on Attenborough’s passion for furthering our scientific understanding of the natural world.
I once sat on a remote beach with Attenborough, near the very tip of South America. I can still clearly remember the warmth of the rounded, flat stones beneath me. We sat only a metre or so apart. We’d just spent the morning filming the excavation of the largest dinosaur ever discovered.
Over lunch, Attenborough had recalled we were close to a beach he’d filmed at years before, where grey whale mothers drew in close to shore with their calves to rub against the stone in the shallows to exfoliate their skin. As luck would have it, it was the perfect time of year and before long, there we were watching a mother and calf just a few metres offshore.
Facts and figures bubbled out of Attenborough excitedly, not at all like the calm and more measured way we’re all so used to. For those few minutes, he was childlike in his wonder and excitement at the scene in front of us and I marvelled at how he has not only maintained that love for the natural world for so long but how he has always so passionately shared it with the rest of us.
For a century now, Attenborough’s life has been intimately interwoven not only with humanity’s growing scientific understanding of the natural world but also its
accelerating loss. Spanning over 70 years, Attenborough has been our most trusted and prolific mediator between scientific knowledge and the public.
His early landmark BBC series Life on Earth: A Natural History (1979) did something few academic texts ever could. It made the complexity of evolutionary biology accessible. Across his work, natural selection, adaptation, ecology and behaviour are not presented as intangible concepts but as organic processes shaping form, function and ultimately survival across the natural world.
In doing so, Attenborough helped normalise evolutionary thinking for hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, embedding complex scientific principles into popular culture, right in our living rooms.
Sir David Attenborough and Professor Ben Garrod spending a day at Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
Central to his work has been a commitment to scientific accuracy. Attenborough’s
programmes have been developed in close collaboration with academics and field
researchers, ensuring narratives about animal behaviour, ecosystems and
biodiversity reflect current evidence.
This relationship between science and storytelling has been crucial because rather than dumbing down complexity, Attenborough’s “everyday” approach demonstrates audiences can engage with content that could all too easily be written off as belonging to more academic and scientifically literate viewers.
The Insights section is committed to high-quality longform journalism. Our editors work with academics from many different backgrounds who are tackling a wide range of societal and scientific challenges.
Yet the tone of his work has changed. His early documentaries were
characterised by a sense of abundance and discovery. Over time, as scientific
evidence for biodiversity loss and climate change mounted, his work shifted
accordingly. More recently, his documentaries increasingly shine a light on
human impact, habitat destruction and extinction risk. This evolution of change in his own tone mirrors the science itself, highlighting Attenborough’s credibility as a communicator willing to adjust his message as the evidence demands.
Attenborough’s contribution to conservation has not come through activism alone. Research shows that an emotional connection to nature precedes any behavioural change. Attenborough has actively helped build the public conditions necessary for conservation policy and action by fostering wonder, curiosity and empathy for the natural world. His influence can be traced in the generations of scientists, conservationists and educators who cite his programmes as formative experiences.
For many, particularly those without access to wild spaces, Attenborough’s work provides an opportunity and gateway to encounter wild animals and remote ecosystems but also local habitats, helping give us all access to the wonder he perceives in the world around him.
As he turns 100, Attenborough’s legacy is surely inseparable from the global environmental challenges we now face. He has helped society understand not only how life evolved, but, more importantly, why it matters that we protect it now. In an era defined by ecological crisis, his work reminds us that scientific knowledge is most powerful when it connects people to the living world so strongly, it compels us to care enough to protect it, so that we might carry on his legacy and, just like him, act as stewards.
Natural history filmmaking
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon, Professor of Science Communication at the UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies, explains the impact Attenborough has had on natural history television.
In the early 1950s, television was taking off across Britain, but the BBC was still finding its visual voice. Its controller, Cecil McGivern, warned in June 1952 that there was “far too much emphasis…on the spoken word and far too little on the thing seen”. Most early television producers had come from BBC radio and initially made programmes that resembled radio with pictures.
Into this world stepped a young David Attenborough, unencumbered by a career in sound, ready to invent a new language for television and, in the process, reshape natural history filmmaking. At 26, he earned his first natural history credit as producer of The Coelacanth (1953), a 20-minute programme prompted by the capture of a live coelacanth “living fossil” fish off Madagascar.
Eschewing sensationalism, Attenborough tied the story to Darwin’s theory of evolution. This use of wildlife programmes to communicate scientific ideas became his trademark.
The programme blended prerecorded footage with live studio sequences featuring evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley, who used the coelacanth to illustrate life’s transition from sea to land.
With the Zoo Quest series (1954), Attenborough began reshaping wildlife television. For these programmes, he travelled to exotic places with staff from the London Zoo to capture animals for the collection. Each episode relied on prerecorded film linked by live studio sequences, allowing tighter narrative control. The hero in the films, shot by Charles Lagus, was Attenborough himself, who back in London also presented the studio sequences. By assuming all the roles of hero, producer, narrator and presenter, Attenborough became the central performer in the story.
From then on, Attenborough’s fluid on-screen performances gained him much acclaim. A very hard worker, he put much effort in producing highly detailed scripts, which left little to chance. Indeed, by the early 1960s, he had all but lost faith in live television, writing to a BBC colleague:
Zoo Quest was one of Attenborough’s early documentary series.
To begin with I got a tremendous kick out of the excitement of putting out programmes live. But it wore off after a bit and really, except for challenging interviews with lots of ‘immediacy’, I’m for film or some other sort of controlled recording process every time. It is so maddening to miss an effect because of some small mechanical hitch, as so often happens live.
Consistently high ratings encouraged others to emulate his method, and live formats became less fashionable. Film-based production also allowed programmes to be stockpiled, repeated and sold, supporting a more sustainable business model.
After Attenborough moved into BBC management in 1965, his goal was to turn natural history television into a science communication genre. He argued that it was “important” to move away from programmes that simply showcased the beauty of nature and instead engage viewers “to examine in a serious and critical way new trends and ideas in zoology”. Returning to hands-on programme-making a decade later, he embedded this vision in his magnum opus, Life on Earth (1979).
Attenborough looks back on filming Life On Earth.
In the early 1950s, when Attenborough joined the BBC, natural history television had been mostly conceived of as a specialist genre catering for amateur naturalists to share in the aesthetic and emotional enjoyment of nature. By the 1980s, he had helped transform it into one of the most popular genres of TV programming and a powerful conduit for science communication. This influence continues in his later work, including Planet Earth II, Blue Planet II and Our Planet, which combine cinematic storytelling with urgent environmental themes.
As he celebrates his 100th birthday, Attenborough’s legacy endures, defining natural history television as one of the most powerful forms of science communication and inspiring generations to look at the living world with wonder and understanding.
Communicating research
Saffron O’Neill researches climate communication and public engagement. She explains the ways Attenborough has shaped climate communication techniques across the world.
Attenborough is one of the few voices on climate change that almost everyone is willing to listen to. Over seven decades, his work has transformed how scientific knowledge is communicated, combining advances in broadcasting with powerful storytelling.
My colleague, PhD researcher Kate Holden, is exploring how young people engage with marine sustainability through online video, from traditional nature documentaries to YouTubers like MrBeast. Attenborough still stands out as an expert young people take seriously.
Part of his appeal lies in his willingness to meet audiences where they are, adapting to changing media habits. He joined Instagram in 2020 (breaking the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to reach one million followers) and has collaborated with Netflix to stream shows.
In recent years Attenborough has worked on programmes for more modern platforms, including Netflix.
Attenborough has shown the power of the media to shape how we see the natural world. Although there is little evidence for the appealing notion that watching a documentary like Blue Planet II directly drives behavioural change (such as reducing peoples’ plastic consumption), nature documentaries can certainly drive both public and policy interest via increased media attention.
Engaging the public on climate and nature requires moving beyond a simple notion of “getting the message across” and towards recognising the complexity and power of storytelling. For this, Attenborough’s success is an invaluable model.
His programmes combine top-class storytelling with pioneering technology. The visual appeal of his richly crafted documentaries is matched by compelling stories about little-known species. His work forms a substantial archive of success – many of the most popular TV programmes of all time are his nature documentaries.
In a highly cited paper from 2007, a team led by environmental social scientist Irene Lorenzoni defined engagement with climate change. They claimed that: “It is not enough for people to know about climate change in order to be engaged; they also need to care about it, be motivated and able to take action.”
Early Attenborough programming focused on increasing peoples’ knowledge about the natural world and as part of this, implicitly providing a reason to care about it. Increasingly though, he has moved to a more explicit stance about the climate emergency and our moral and ethical duty to act. An analysis of Attenborough’s use of language carried out in the late 2010s demonstrates this. It shows how he now uses emotional appeals to action. During an appearance on the Outrage + Optimism podcast he said: “we have an obligation on our shoulders and it would be to our deep eternal shame if we fail to acknowledge that.”
When a communicator like activist Greta Thunberg makes an appeal to morality, it can polarise audiences. Attenborough’s broad popularity makes his message reach wider audiences. His trustworthiness, storytelling mastery and innovative use of technology helps explain why he continues to have such a lasting impact on science and environmental communication, seven decades after his first broadcast.
Speaking up about climate change
Chloe Brimicombe, Climate Scientist at the University of Oxford, explores whether Attenborough’s on-screen attention to the climate crisis could have started earlier.
In his early documentaries, Attenborough focused on the wonder of the natural world.
However, in recent years his beliefs changed with the science and more of his films started to cover climate change directly. For example, Climate Change: The Facts in 2019 and Perfect Planet 2021.
Attenborough’s works are part of the culture of the UK and the world. In my own life Attenborough’s works have always been present. During my undergraduate degree at Aberystwyth University, I was shown Frozen Planet in a lecture about glaciers and ice sheets because my lecturer was featured in the series. That moment stuck with me as I started my career as a climate scientist.
During my PhD in environmental sciences at the University of Reading, my fellow researchers were all big fans of Attenborough and of what could be achieved through the power of documentary film-making. In 2025, I was lucky enough to attend the film premier of Ocean with David Attenborough, something I consider a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
As well as inspiring audiences with awe and wonder, documentaries can be an important way to communicate what is happening to our changing climate. They reach audiences that might not otherwise engage on the subject. Documentary making has drawn critique for focusing on a producer’s interest instead of capturing the scientific background behind a certain issue.
This has led to schemes such as the Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Scheme being setup to help bring scientists and documentary makers together.
In Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet (2020), he talks about the changes he has seen in the natural environment and his concern for the future of the planet. In the film Ocean with David Attenborough, the 2025 premier took place just before the UN’s ocean summit in Nice, France. This helped lead to real policy discussions and changes. That includes supporting the global ocean’s treaty, a landmark international agreement which creates a network of protected ocean sanctuaries.
Attenborough may have been late in communicating specifically on climate change. But, in recent years he has changed to being a strong advocate. Now, it’s time to make sure that message is heard and acted upon so that the world’s wonders remain for many generations to come.
The climate crisis has a communications problem. How do we tell stories that move people – not just to fear the future, but to imagine and build a better one? This article is part of Climate Storytelling, a series exploring how arts and science can join forces to spark understanding, hope and action.
Chloe BrimicombeI is part-funded by the ESRC research council and she is a heat ambassador for shade the UK.
Jean-Baptiste Gouyon received funding from The Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC
Saffron O’Neill receives funding from the ESRC (UKRI3360 and ES/W00805X/1). She also receives funding for C3DS (Centre for Climate Communication and Data Science) from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (grant: 2210–08101) and the University of Exeter. The funders had no role in the conceptualization, design, data collection, analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and therefore the findings and conclusions are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions or policies of the funders.
Ben Garrod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
En 1976, les Hommes du président, d’Alan J. Pakula, dépeignait un idéal-type du travail journalistique : enquête minutieuse de longue haleine, rapport objectif des faits, refus d’imposer un point de vue aux lecteurs. Le contexte était très différent d’aujourd’hui, des journaux tels que le Washington Post étant à l’époque des institutions unanimement respectées. Cinquante ans plus tard, la confiance du grand public à l’égard de la presse s’est largement érodée, du fait d’un ensemble de facteurs, au premier rang desquels la quête du profit et des clics…
Les Hommes du président, grand classique du cinéma américain, est sorti il y a cinquante ans, en avril 1976 aux États-Unis.
Le film, porté par Robert Redford et Dustin Hoffman, est une adaptation du best-seller éponyme de Bob Woodward et Carl Bernstein, paru deux ans plus tôt (en français, les Fous du président), détaillant la longue enquête des deux journalistes du Washington Post sur le scandale du Watergate, qui a profondément et durablement ébranlé la confiance des Américains dans leur gouvernement.
Rappelons le contexte : le 17 juin 1972, des hommes commandités par le Comité pour la réélection du président républicain Richard Nixon (élu une première fois en 1968, il allait être réélu quelques mois plus tard, en novembre 1972) sont surpris en train de s’introduire par effraction dans le siège national du Parti démocrate, situé dans l’immeuble du Watergate, à Washington. L’enquête aboutira à la démission du président en 1974 et à l’incarcération de plusieurs membres de son administration.
Quand l’Amérique faisait encore confiance aux médias
Certaines formules employées dans le livre puis dans le film sont entrées dans le langage courant : « Deep Throat » (littéralement « Gorge profonde ») pour désigner les sources secrètes ; l’expression « Follow the money » (« Suivez l’argent ») ; et, bien sûr, l’ajout du suffixe -gate à la fin d’un mot pour désigner un scandale.
Les Hommes du président reste sans doute le film le plus célèbre jamais consacré au journalisme, et a significativement façonné la perception de la profession par le grand public.
À le revoir aujourd’hui, on découvre une Amérique où les médias jouissaient d’une réelle confiance. À l’époque, une large majorité d’Américains estimaient que si une information était publiée par le Washington Post ou le New York Times, c’est qu’elle était véridique. Le contraste est frappant avec la situation actuelle, quand la méfiance envers les médias n’a jamais été aussi grande aux États-Unis.
Si Woodward et Bernstein ont réussi à mener leur enquête à bien, c’est aussi parce qu’ils ont bénéficié d’un luxe aujourd’hui disparu : le rythme de l’actualité était, en ce temps, bien plus lent qu’aujourd’hui. Les journaux n’étaient imprimés qu’une à deux fois par jour – de quoi laisser aux journalistes un temps précieux pour vérifier leurs sources, consulter des archives et discuter de leur travail avec leurs collègues.
Et, surtout, s’ils avaient des doutes sur un article qu’ils étaient en train de rédiger, il leur était plus facile de le mettre de côté et d’y revenir le lendemain. Le cycle de l’information actuel – qui fonctionne 24 heures sur 24 – rend cela beaucoup plus difficile : la rapidité prime sur l’exactitude, et la course effrénée pour être le premier à sortir le scoop peut inciter à publier des articles avant qu’ils soient tout à fait au point.
Le modèle économique n’est plus le même non plus. De nombreux journaux locaux appartenaient à des familles implantées dans leurs villes depuis plusieurs générations et, souvent, fortement impliquées dans la vie de leur communauté au sens large. En 1974, le Washington Post avait à sa tête Katherine Graham, dont le père, Eugene Meyer, avait acheté le journal en 1933 et l’avait dirigé jusqu’en 1946, quand il passa les rênes à l’époux de sa fille, Philip Graham ; Katherine avait repris la fonction après le décès de Philip en 1963.
Bien sûr, il y avait déjà des magnats de la presse tel William Randolph Hearst, dont la vie inspira Citizen Kane (1946), d’Orson Welles. Mais même les patrons plus puissants évoluaient dans un écosystème où la crédibilité était absolument essentielle pour le succès d’un journal. Les recettes provenaient des ventes et de la publicité, ce qui donnait aux journalistes le temps nécessaire pour travailler minutieusement sur un article donné.
Aujourd’hui, en revanche, l’accent est mis avant tout sur la « course aux clics », et on voit se multiplier des articles composés de listes ou dotés de titres racoleurs, conçus pour susciter le plus grand nombre possible de partages sur les réseaux sociaux.
Comment la presse façonnait les priorités de l’opinion publique
Au début des années 1970, la presse participait tout autant – si ce n’est plus – que la télévision à définir les priorités du pays. Des commentateurs et des chroniqueurs vedettes, comme Walter Winchell, étaient déjà des célébrités, mais du fait du succès des Hommes du président, les journalistes d’investigation sont à leur tour entrés en pleine lumière. Cette nouvelle donne a eu un revers : elle a pu encourager une approche du reportage davantage axée sur l’ego des auteurs, où le récit du journaliste-héros prenait le pas sur l’enquête.
Par ailleurs, à l’époque, les médias se focalisaient bien plus sur l’idée de rapporter l’actualité que sur celle de la créer. Aujourd’hui, de nombreuses plateformes médiatiques se revendiquant explicitement du journalisme d’investigation considèrent que leur rôle est de définir les priorités du grand public. Les médias plus traditionnels dénoncent à cet égard un militantisme idéologique envahissant.
Les Hommes du président semble adopter le point de vue selon lequel les médias ont pour mission de rapporter les faits, à charge ensuite pour le grand public de décider comment il convient de les interpréter. Toutefois, le film lui-même contredit déjà cette position. Woodward et Bernstein ne se sont pas contentés de relater les faits : ils ont mené le débat. Cinquante ans plus tard, la question de savoir si la presse doit être un miroir tendu au pouvoir ou une force qui façonne activement l’action politique reste d’actualité.
« Network », contemporain prémonitoire des « Hommes du président »
1976 a également vu la sortie de Network. Main basse sur la télévision, qui mettait en scène l’histoire d’un présentateur (joué par Peter Finch) victime d’une crise de nerfs en direct, qui devient alors « le prophète fou des ondes », exhortant son public à hurler par la fenêtre : « Je suis furieux et je n’en peux plus ! »
Dans le film, la chaîne de télévision appartient à un conglomérat aux intérêts tentaculaires. Woodward et Bernstein sont des professionnels qui font ce que le métier exige, ils travaillent sans animosité, dans le seul objectif de révéler la vérité sur le complot du Watergate, et non de faire chuter Nixon ; Network, en revanche, dépeint un monde où le profit écrase tout, où médias et politiques sont en guerre permanente – et où les journalistes cherchent moins à informer qu’à attiser la colère du grand public.
Cinquante ans plus tard, la question n’est pas de savoir quel film avait vu juste (tout porte à croire que c’est Network). Il s’agit plutôt de savoir si le monde célébré par les Hommes du président était déjà en train de disparaître, alors même que le public et la critique en faisaient l’éloge.
Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Mosaïque représentant l’enlèvement d’Europe, Byblos, époque romaine, fin II<sup>e</sup> - début III<sup>e</sup> siècle, 222 x 243 cm. Ministère de la culture/Direction générale des antiquités du Liban.
L’exposition « Byblos, cité millénaire du Liban », à l’Institut du monde arabe (IMA), à Paris, du 24 mars au 23 août 2026, était prévue pour l’automne 2024. Mais elle avait été déprogrammée en raison de la guerre au Liban. C’est finalement en pleine nouvelle guerre qu’elle vient d’être inaugurée, les objets précieux ayant réussi à sortir à temps du pays bombardé.
Byblos, à une quarantaine de kilomètres au nord de Beyrouth, était en Méditerranée orientale « la cité portuaire la plus puissante à l’âge du bronze », rappelle Élodie Bouffard, commissaire et responsable des expositions à l’Institut du monde arabe (IMA). Un véritable carrefour commercial entre l’Orient, l’Égypte, l’Anatolie et même la Crète minoenne.
Le site a été fouillé à partir de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, révélant d’inestimables trésors (bijoux, statuettes, vaisselle d’or et d’argent, armes d’apparat…) dont une partie est exposée à Paris. Le parcours historique proposé permet aussi de dresser un bilan archéologique très précis des recherches menées pendant plus de cent cinquante ans, jusqu’aux travaux récents de Tania Zaven, commissaire scientifique de l’exposition et directrice du site de Byblos.
Collier à pendentif en forme de « pylône » dont le décor montre une double représentation de pharaon assis de part et d’autre d’un faucon et pendentif en forme de coquille au nom de roi Yapi-Shemou-Abi. Byblos, nécropole royale (tombe II), âge du Bronze moyen. Or et pierres semi-précieuses. Beyrouth, ministère de la culture/direction générale des antiquités du Liban. Photo : Philippe Maillard
Byblos et les pharaons
Ce sont les échanges économiques avec l’Égypte qui permettent à la cité-État de connaître son premier essor dans les années 2800-2750 avant notre ère, comme le suggère un vase en pierre au nom de Khâsekhemouy, pharaon de la IIe dynastie, découvert à Byblos.
Le port de la ville, au cœur de la région qui sera nommée Phénicie par les Grecs, deux mille ans plus tard, se trouve au débouché maritime de plusieurs grandes routes commerciales qui convoient le lapis-lazuli depuis l’Asie centrale (Afghanistan actuel) ou encore l’argent provenant d’Anatolie (Turquie). La population locale y ajoute ses propres ressources, notamment le bois de cèdre et autres conifères que les pharaons se procurent pour fabriquer de luxueux navires ou des cercueils.
Les relations avec l’Égypte s’intensifient au cours de l’Ancien Empire (vers 2750-2250 avant notre ère), époque des pharaons bâtisseurs des grandes pyramides. Parmi les trésors de la reine Hétephérès, mère de Khéops, découverts dans son tombeau à Gizeh, on compte des bijoux en argent incrustés de pierres qui ont sans nul doute transité par Byblos, après avoir parcouru quelques milliers de kilomètres.
Mais c’est dans la première moitié du deuxième millénaire (vers 1900-1600 avant notre ère) que la cité commerciale connaît son apogée. Elle est alors la plaque tournante des échanges entre Orient et Occident, comme en témoigne une jarre crétoise à bec verseur, dans le style dit « de Camarès », mise au jour à Byblos. Au même moment, les pharaons égyptiens de la XIIe dynastie (vers 1974-1781 avant notre ère) envoient aux souverains de la cité de magnifiques bijoux sur lesquels leurs noms sont inscrits en hiéroglyphes dans des cartouches.
C’est aussi de cette époque glorieuse que date le temple dit « aux obélisques », car il est orné de nombreuses aiguilles de pierre dont la forme est empruntée à l’art égyptien. La civilisation pharaonique paraît extrêmement prestigieuse aux yeux des souverains et de l’élite. Les rois Abichemou et Ipchemouabi (ou Yapi-Shemou-Abi) possèdent des objets de luxe produits dans la vallée du Nil ou fabriqués localement en style égyptien. De magnifiques bijoux « égyptisants » en or, ornés de pierres multicolores ont été découverts dans la nécropole royale.
Le degré de soumission des rois de Byblos aux pharaons oscille, au fil de siècles, entre alliance et vassalité, selon la période et la puissance effective de l’empire égyptien.
Plaquette décorée du visage de la déesse Hathor sur un pilier. Byblos, âge du Bronze moyen. Ivoire. Beyrouth, ministère de la culture/direction générale des antiquités du Liban. Photo : Philippe Maillard
Le périple d’Ounamon
À la fin du Nouvel Empire, au XIe siècle avant notre ère, l’Égypte se divise en deux royaumes : l’un au sud, l’autre au nord. Le rayonnement du pays est amoindri par cette scission politique. C’est ce que traduit bien un récit égyptien racontant l’expédition d’Ounamon, envoyé à Byblos par le grand prêtre du dieu Amon de Thèbes, en Haute-Égypte. Ounamon est chargé d’aller chercher du bois pour permettre la reconstruction de la barque sacrée qui sert à transporter la statue de culte du dieu égyptien.
Ounamon emporte avec lui une cargaison de métal précieux. De l’argent qui sert alors de monnaie d’échange sous la forme de petits lingots. Mais, au cours d’une escale, l’Égyptien se fait voler son argent. Il poursuit néanmoins sa navigation vers Byblos. Reçu par le roi de la cité, il tente de le persuader de faire don de bois à l’Égypte comme s’il s’agissait d’un tribut. Mais le souverain refuse et rappelle les règles élémentaires du commerce qui sont fondées sur un échange réciproque.
La fin du récit est perdue, mais il est clair que l’Égypte n’a plus alors le statut de grande puissance. Le dernier pharaon dont le nom a été retrouvé à Byblos est Osorkon II (vers 865-830 avant notre ère). D’autres empires vont désormais prendre le relais des pharaons : les Assyriens, les Babyloniens, puis les Perses, jusqu’à ce que le conquérant gréco-macédonien Alexandre le Grand s’empare à son tour de la Phénicie, en 332 avant notre ère.
Byblos passe ensuite sous la domination des Ptolémées, successeurs d’Alexandre en Égypte, puis des Séleucides, autre dynastie gréco-macédonienne, et, enfin, des Romains.
Buste de la déesse Hathor. Byblos, temple aux Obélisques, âge du Bronze moyen. Beyrouth, ministère de la culture/direction générale des antiquités du Liban. Photo : Philippe Maillard
La Dame de Byblos
Les relations économiques entre Byblos et l’Égypte sont accompagnées d’échanges culturels et religieux. Les rois de Byblos rendaient un culte à une grande déesse nommée Baalat Gebal, c’est-à-dire « la Dame de Byblos ». Elle était considérée par les Égyptiens comme l’équivalent de la déesse Hathor, liée à la maternité, à la joie et à la fertilité.
À l’âge du Bronze, la Dame de Byblos est figurée suivant les codes de l’art égyptien, coiffée d’une lourde perruque ou arborant des cornes de vache.
Le roi de Byblos, élu de la déesse
Le souverain de Byblos joue le rôle d’intermédiaire entre la Baalat Gebal et ses sujets. Il est censé avoir été intronisé par la Dame. Au Vᵉ siècle avant notre ère, le roi Yehawmilk affirme ainsi, sur une stèle :
« Je suis Yehawmilk, roi de Byblos […], moi que la Dame de Byblos a fait roi de Byblos. »
Cependant, malgré cette affirmation de son droit divin, il ne semble pas avoir régné en souverain absolu. Il devait, au moins en certaines occasions, consulter un Conseil des Anciens, sorte d’assemblée législative, connue par des inscriptions.
La fonction royale disparaîtra après la conquête de la ville par Alexandre le Grand, en 332 avant notre ère. Byblos se mue alors en cité de type grec, ou polis, avec un corps civique, un Conseil et des magistrats élus.
Figurines divines. Byblos, temple aux Obélisques, âge du Bronze. Bronze et feuille d’or. Beyrouth, ministère de la culture/direction générale des antiquités du Liban. Photo : Philippe Maillard
Isis est partie à la recherche du corps de son époux, Osiris, assassiné par son frère, Seth. Le criminel a placé la dépouille dans un coffre qu’il a jeté dans le Nil. Le fleuve l’a emporté jusqu’à la mer Méditerranée, puis les flots l’ont poussé jusque sur les côtes du Proche-Orient, près de Byblos où il a échoué. Sur le rivage, un arbrisseau s’est mis à pousser, recouvrant complètement le cercueil d’Osiris.
Le roi de Byblos, séduit par le bel arbre si soudainement apparu, ordonne de le couper pour en faire une colonne qu’il dresse dans son palais. C’est alors qu’Isis débarque à Byblos. Elle obtient du roi qu’il lui livre le tronc de bois. La déesse va pouvoir prendre possession du corps de son époux qu’elle ramène en Égypte. Plus tard, elle parviendra à s’unir à lui, par une opération magique, et accouchera d’un fils, Horus, qui renversera l’usurpateur Seth et deviendra le nouveau pharaon légitime.
Il est intéressant de remarquer que Byblos constitue l’une des étapes des pérégrinations d’Isis à la recherche de son époux. La déesse égyptienne a été assimilée à la fois à Hathor et à la Dame de Byblos, tandis qu’Osiris est vu comme l’équivalent d’Adonis, grand dieu phénicien.
Le culte d’Adonis
Le culte d’Adonis est bien attesté à l’époque romaine, du Ier au IIIᵉ siècle. Les habitants de Byblos célèbrent alors la résurrection du dieu. Ils se rendent en procession chaque année dans un sanctuaire édifié dans la montagne, à plus de 1000 mètres d’altitude, à proximité d’une source sacrée nommée Afqa, au milieu d’une nature fraîche et luxuriante.
Au regard de l’actualité, la visite de cette lumineuse exposition laisse un goût de paradis perdu. Mais elle suscite aussi l’espoir que le Liban, antique Phénicie dont le nom évoque le Phénix, cet oiseau mythologique immortel, parvienne à renaître de ses cendres.
L’affiche de l’exposition « Byblos, cité millénaire du Liban », IMA, Paris, 24 mars-23 août 2026. IMA
Christian-Georges Schwentzel ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Source: The Conversation – UK – By Heather Ellis, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, School of Education, University of Sheffield
The UK government has launched its first review of school food standards in over a decade, alongside plans to extend free school meals to an additional 500,000 children in families receiving universal credit.
Much of the coverage has focused on specific menu changes, including the possible removal of sugary desserts such as steamed sponge. The focus on such changes might be reflective of how school food has never been only about nutrition for those who have experienced it. It is also about welfare, discipline, pleasure, stigma and care.
The School Meals Service: Past, Present – and Future? is a project I worked on that brings together archival research, oral histories and ethnographic work in schools across the UK. We were also the principal academic partner for the Food Museum’s ongoing School Dinners exhibition near Ipswich, which explores the changing history of school meals through objects, menus, memories and tastes – from semolina and sponge pudding to Turkey Twizzlers.
Since school meals were first introduced in legislation in 1906, they have changed repeatedly. Early provision was patchy and often associated with charity. After the 1944 Education Act, school meals became part of the postwar welfare settlement, intended to provide children with a nutritious meal during the school day.
For decades, the classic image of the school dinner was “meat and two veg”, followed by puddings such as sponge, semolina, rice pudding, jam roly-poly or custard.
From the 1980s, the provision of school meals became more fragmented. Nutritional standards were removed, local authorities had more freedom, and commercial catering reshaped menus. Later debates around Turkey Twizzlers and processed food, driven by people like celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, were part of this longer story. Today’s government review of school food standards is another chapter in that history.
What children remember
When people recall school dinners, they rarely talk about calories or guidelines. They remember texture, smell and noise.
Joanne, who attended school in Surrey and East Yorkshire from the late 1960s to 1980, described being served vegetables she could not eat: “Mush. Cold … you can’t have that unless you eat your beans … it put me off for life.”
The dining hall mattered as much as the food. Ella, who went to school in Rotherham from 1996 to 2010, remembered the anxiety of a space where “someone would puke and I would freak out … I can’t be in here”. Lauren, who attended schools in Northumbria and Merseyside from 1998 to 2012, recalled mashed potato that “you could pick up with a fork and it would just stick”.
Stigma, inequality and school food
School meals could also expose inequality. Free school meals have long been a vital safety net, but they have also carried stigma.
Joyce, who went to school in Glasgow in the 1960s, remembered the teacher calling children forward with the phrase “come out the frees”. She described it as “the walk of shame”.
Naomi, who attended school in Birmingham in the 1980s, showed how this could intersect with racism. Her mother paid for school meals despite financial strain because she worried Naomi might be singled out: “there weren’t many Black kids in my school”.
Yet school dinners were also remembered with affection. For many people, puddings such as sponge and custard were the best part of the day. For others they evoke control, compulsion or, like for Joyce and Naomi, embarrassment. That is why the removal of steamed sponge resonates. It is not just dessert. It is part of a shared national memory.
Beyond the menu
The Food Museum exhibition captures this complexity. Visitors encounter the familiar foods, but also the people behind them: pupils, parents, cooks, dinner staff, teachers and policymakers.
The exhibition, which has been shortlisted for a 2026 Museums and Heritage Award, draws directly on our research into how school meals changed over time and why those changes mattered socially, economically and culturally.
Today’s reforms emphasise healthier ingredients, more fruit and vegetables, fewer fried foods and less sugar. These aims matter. History and our research suggests what is served matters. So do the dining hall, the queue, the noise, the payment system, the stigma, the pleasure and the memories children carry into adulthood.
School dinners are one of the most widely shared experiences of British childhood. As they continue to evolve it is worth considering not just what is on the plate, but how it feels to eat it.
Podcasting has become one of our most intimate cultural forms. We often listen alone, through headphones, to voices that guide us through complex or deeply personal stories. Over time, we come to trust these voices not just for the information they convey, but for the sense that someone has listened, selected and shaped what we hear.
That relationship is unsettled by The Epstein Files, a new AI-generated podcast series that promises to process millions of Epstein-related documents into a coherent narrative. But when no one is clearly responsible for what we hear, the authority of the voice becomes harder to trust.
Created by data entrepreneur Adam Levy, the series draws on more than three million documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein and presents them as a “forensic audit” in the form of a conversational podcast between two AI-generated hosts.
Launched in February 2026, it’s had more than two million downloads so far. It’s a daily, self-updating show built through an automated pipeline that ingests, cross references and scripts material using AI systems, operating at a speed that traditional newsrooms could only dream of.
At first listen, The Epstein Files works, sounding like a carefully crafted podcast. But despite the jokes, cross-talk, hesitations and filler words that mirror shows like This American Life, Serial or S-Town, there are no identifiable human speakers behind the voices. From research to publication, the process appears to be largely automated, in line with Levy’s intention to “strip the emotion” from the story.
The hosts also claim that the podcast acts as a filter, combining AI-assisted processing with “human analysis” to review the records rather than speculate. But this distinction is harder to verify when the processes behind selection, interpretation and emphasis remain largely invisible.
Emotion, judgement and interpretation are seen here as irritations or threats. However, systems that select, rank and narrate information do not become neutral simply because those decisions bypass direct human involvement.
The series presents itself as “the first AI native” investigative documentary. Yet it lacks many of the features we’ve come to expect. There are no interviews, no location recordings, and hardly any sonic cues to guide the listener. Instead, it relies almost entirely on simulated conversation.
Scale is not judgement
The use of AI in podcasting is not simply a technical development. It disrupts the way shows are produced, structured and distributed. Rather than acting as a tool, these systems are beginning to reshape or obscure editorial processes that usually rely on human judgement.
The Epstein Files demonstrates how effectively AI can process vast quantities of material, producing a narrative that sounds coherent. But coherence is not the same as sense making, and pattern recognition is not interpretation. Deciding what matters, what is credible, and what should be left out remains a human task.
Automation does not remove judgement. Instead it relocates it, often in ways that are harder to see. Decisions are embedded in training data, system design and weighting mechanisms while appearing as neutral or unbiased outputs.
When information can be processed at scale, the question is no longer just what we know, but how we decide what counts as knowledge. Editorial standards don’t disappear, but they become harder to identify.
Why audio makes this harder
The human voice carries assumptions of authenticity. It signals presence, experience and connection. When we hear someone speak, we tend to assume a relationship between voice and responsibility. That assumption becomes more difficult to sustain when the voice is artificial yet sounds convincingly human.
These nameless hosts are not neutral. They are modelled on familiar broadcast styles associated with authority in western media. In doing so, they reproduce ideas about professionalism and trust, while remaining detached from any identifiable speaker.
What is striking about The Epstein Files is how persuasively authority is performed. The conversational structure suggests multiple perspectives, the tone implies neutrality, and the pacing suggests careful deliberation. But none of this guarantees that the material has been critically evaluated.
Content that creates itself
It could be argued that automation results in more transparency. But this relies on the assumption that volume can substitute for editorial oversight. When material is misinterpreted, stripped of context or simply wrong, it’s often unclear how those mistakes might be identified or addressed.
This is particularly troubling with material such as the Epstein case, which centres on human harm and exploitation. Such stories demand sensitivity, restraint and clearly traceable accountability. The way these stories are processed and retold can also feel detached from the people most affected by them.
At the same time, AI generated podcasts are growing. They are cheap to produce and increasingly difficult to distinguish from human made content. Their appeal may lie in speed, availability and the impression that someone has already done the work of sorting through chaos.
For audiences, the question is not only how to identify what is true or false. It’s also about recognising what is missing. Listening has typically meant encountering different voices, perspectives and forms of responsibility. When those elements are reduced or removed, the act of listening itself begins to change. The Epstein Files offers little sense of a right of reply for its audience. There is no clear editorial voice and no visible chain of accountability.
Broadcasting always depended on relationships between voices and listeners, and between storytelling and editorial judgement. This is beginning to change. The Epstein Files does not signal the end of podcasting or investigative journalism. But it marks a moment in which the cultural meaning of the voice is being tested.
Co-presence and community is central to radio and podcasting. But in The Epstein Files, nobody is there. There may be voices but if you listen very closely, you’ll notice that no one ever takes a breath.
Kathryn McDonald does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Across the UK, working‑class boys are navigating an unprecedented convergence of pressures. There are entrenched gaps between working-class boys and their peers in their levels of attainment at every stage of education.
Often, however, the solutions for addressing this gap in attainment have roots in assumptions and stereotypes. These tend towards positioning working-class boys as somehow suffering from an innate deficiency: apathy, laziness or a lack of ambition for their future careers and employment. The evidence does not back these stereotypes up.
Our research has focused on understanding the experiences of these boys. In 2023, we carried out research that used creative activities to explore what being a young man meant for them. We found that some of the young men felt the need to create protective identities linked to aggression, emotional suppression and educational disinterest at school to avoid harm. For them, being a boy who expressed themselves was a risky enterprise. One boy said:
I feel like you know the bullying and torment would definitely go up quite a bit for, I guess, you know, something stupid like writing how I feel on a page.
We worked with young men who were open and able to engage in challenging and complex discussions, but who made it clear to us that doing this in their own educational environments would potentially lead to social, emotional and potentially even physical harm.
We saw young men with deep rooted aspirations they were often afraid to express. We did not see problematic boys in need of disciplining, but a need to understand and address the relational and structural conditions which shape their behaviour.
Lacking resources – and evidence
In almost every public debate about boys, whether it be attainment gaps, misogyny or youth violence, teachers are positioned as society’s key defence. The government’s recent violence against women and girls strategy, for instance, foregrounds the role of educators in shaping boys’ attitudes and preventing future harm.
But it assumes that schools possess the frameworks, training, and relational bandwidth to meet these challenges. Crucially, it also assumes that we truly understand the daily dynamics between teachers and working‑class boys.
Teachers are under pressure to take responsibility for shaping boys’ attitudes. Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
The reality is that we don’t. The last major study of teacher perceptions was over 20 years ago. This decades-wide gap in evidence and understanding is a void which, our findings demonstrate, has been filled by stereotype and assumption. Rather than a focus on what boys need to achieve at school, there’s a risk that they are seen, both within schools and by the general public, as perpetrators of misogyny and violent behaviour in waiting – that they are an issue that needs to be targeted.
We’ve recently carried out a national survey of over 500 teachers, exploring their perceptions of boys and young men in the classroom. It was followed up with in-depth focus groups with 40 working-class boys aged from 12 to 16, as well as 17 teachers.
We found that teachers showed a high level of confidence in their ability to model dignity, respect and active listening in the classroom. However, the perspectives of young men painted a far more inconsistent picture. It pointed toward two significant disconnects.
First, that respect is defined very differently by educators and the boys and young men they taught. Around 90% of teachers reported that they consistently modelled dignity and respect in the classroom. But when speaking with the boys, often they described the respect they received from teachers as conditional, inconsistent or transactional. The expectation was that respect for teachers came from their position of authority and respect was only paid to the young men in return for theirs.
Second, that masculinity, emotion and online influence are poorly understood and rarely discussed. When asked, just a third of the educators we surveyed could recall a meaningful conversation with a male student about masculinity. Many felt uncomfortable and unprepared to have conversations like this. From the boys’ side, they described significant emotional needs which were often unmet, limited safe spaces to discuss feelings, and punitive responses to distress.
How teachers perceive working-class boys, and the opportunities they have to discuss masculinity at school, aren’t the only factors affecting academic attainment for these young men. Poverty, for instance, has a significant impact on early attainment and a lasting impact on educational success. But our research showed that when reflective, safe, judgement-free conversations occurred, the boys and young men responded positively. It demonstrates that working‑class boys engage, reflect and thrive in educational contexts where they feel respected, listened to and understood.
On the other hand, though, the research suggests that teachers are influenced by wider societal narratives. Within the study many educators defaulted to talking about misogyny or Andrew Tate even when not asked directly. This suggests a narrow lens of focus on issues related to masculinity, shaped by wider social anxieties.
The boys and young men consistently faced contradictory expectations about who they should be. They reported being told to “open up”, yet faced being penalised or ridiculed when they did. They were told to avoid harmful online content, yet weren’t provided any space to engage in critical, deliberate conversations about what they had seen.
Without that space for conversation on which to build, it is our fear that efforts to tackle misogyny, disengagement or disparities in educational outcomes will continue to fall short.
Jon Rainford conducts research for Boys Impact
Alex Blower is affiliated with Arts University Bournemouth and Boys’ Impact.
In central Seoul, South Korea, a motorway once covered a buried urban stream. Today, that same stretch has been uncovered – a process known as daylighting – and this river is home to plants, fish and insects. This flowing water cools the city in summer and attracts tens of thousands of people every day. What used to be concrete now boosts biodiversity, the local economy and community wellbeing.
Similar transformations are unfolding elsewhere.
In Christchurch, New Zealand, river habitats and wetlands were rebuilt after a major earthquake in 2011, guided in part by Māori knowledge of waterways and floodplains. In Vancouver, Canada, nature-based stormwater systems have been integrated into urban design through long-term collaboration with local First Nations.
Across the world, urban planning projects are beginning to take a different approach. One that designs with living freshwater systems, rather than trying to control and contain them.
In a new study, our international team of freshwater scientists and planning experts highlights that, while our towns and cities contain some of the world’s most degraded rivers, wetlands and ponds, they also provide huge opportunities for protecting and restoring freshwater wildlife.
Cities and towns have historically been designed with people in mind. Planning systems prioritise housing, transport, economic growth and flood defence – often treating rivers and streams as infrastructure rather than living ecosystems.
This hasn’t always been the case. Ancient civilisations, from the Indus to the Maya, built settlements around water. They worked with floods, wetlands and seasonal flows in ways that supported both people and nature. With the dawn of industrialisation and modern planning, floodplains were built on, rivers were straightened, streams buried and waterways increasingly engineered to move water through cities rather than support wildlife.
The consequences are stark and hard to ignore: degraded urban waterways, declining freshwater species, and whole cities are more vulnerable to climate-driven floods, heatwaves and water scarcity, contributing to a global collapse in freshwater biodiversity.
Our rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands occupy only a tiny fraction of the planet while supporting roughly a third of all vertebrate species. Importantly, freshwater acts as an ecological life-support system, sustaining a range of species – including us.
This is why the latest figures are so alarming. Freshwater vertebrate animals such as salmon and eel populations have fallen by 85% over the last 50 years. This is one of the steepest collapses of any group of species on Earth. Urban waterways sit at the heart of this rapid decline.
Movement to deal with this crisis has started. Countries have signed up to ambitious global agreements, pledging to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
But translating these promises into real change remains a major challenge.
Urban planners as allies
Urban planners shape the very environments where freshwater pressures are most intense – towns and cities. Every day, they make decisions affecting how land is zoned, how stormwater is managed, where green space goes, what buffers are protected, and how urban form evolves. Their actions ripple through entire catchments.
Yet most urban planners often aren’t supported or equipped with the ecological knowledge needed to incorporate freshwater biodiversity into daily practice.
Urban planners need the tools, training and support to recognise freshwater ecosystems as valuable living systems that underpin city resilience, human health and everyday wellbeing – rather than obstacles to be overcome.
In cities such as Breda in the Netherlands, Los Angeles in the US and Nanjing in China, this different way of thinking about freshwater is taking hold. And planners aren’t working alone.
Local residents and Indigenous communities, ecologists, engineers and even schools are often involved from the outset. Together, they bring diverse knowledge of the local context and can build a shared environmental stewardship. Early collaboration helps ensure freshwater biodiversity isn’t an afterthought and results in lasting care for rivers, ponds and wetlands.
Education matters too.
To foster this transition, silos between planning, ecology and engineering can be broken down. Land-use decisions can then be made with a clearer understanding of how water behaves across an entire catchment and how that shapes freshwater habitats.
Just as important is how knowledge flows. Freshwater biodiversity research doesn’t always reach the people making day-to-day planning decisions, or those designing and building projects on the ground. When planners, scientists and delivery teams have access to shared tools, open data or simple design guidance, nature-positive ideas are far more likely to make it off the page and into our cities.
Clear rules are also useful. Biodiversity targets only make a difference if they are backed up by practical local standards and the resources to implement them. For example, we need standards on how to protect riverbanks, restore floodplains or design stormwater systems that work with nature, rather than against it. Without that clarity – and the training and resources to support it – planners are often left trying to balance competing demands on their own.
There are still big gaps in what we know. How much space do urban rivers really need, and how does this vary from place to place? Which nature-based solutions work best across different landscapes? Urban planners can help answer these questions by learning from what works and using that knowledge to improve outcomes for freshwater biodiversity.
Urban planners – often working behind the scenes within local and devolved governments – are at the forefront of this transformation. They can embed freshwater biodiversity into the hearts of our cities.
However, planners cannot do this alone. Freshwater scientists, policymakers, river restoration specialists, engineers, social scientists and economists can work with planners. Universities and professional bodies can rethink how planning is taught. Governments can recognise planners as agents of ecological recovery, not just arbiters of urban growth.
Cities could become hubs for freshwater restoration and recovery, rather than hotspots of decline. They can become places where rivers, wetlands and people thrive together – with benefits that flow far beyond city boundaries.
Helen A. L. Currie receives funding from UKRI Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council Noise Network +.
Irene Gregory-Eaves receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Steven J Cooke receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. He is appointed as Canadian Commissioner for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
