Waiting Room in Afghanistan
Conflicts in Africa and global shortcomings in confronting the ravages of AIDS dominated a list published Thursday by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) of the most underreported humanitarian stories of 2005.
“Media coverage can have a positive impact on relief efforts — just look at the nutritional crisis in Niger last year,” said Nicolas de Torrente, executive director of the international medical aid organisation.
“Although relief was far too late for many, the only reason aid efforts increased at all was the media attention at the peak of the crisis,” de Torrente said.
According to Andrew Tyndall, publisher of the online media-tracking journal The Tyndall Report, the 10 stories highlighted by MSF accounted for just eight minutes of the more than 240 hours of nightly newscasts on the three US television networks in 2005.
I have to lay some of this off to parochialism. The average American treats world news like world sports. If it ain’t happening in New York or L.A., it ain’t happening. The rest is just mediocre journalism.
I get grumpier than usual about this stuff because I lost my family doctor to MSF, several years ago. He’s still OK. In Afghanistan the last I heard. But, it’s taken quite a while to find a replacement as well-educated, thoughtful and competent.
Paul, you’re raising the question of charitable attitudes. The articles doesn’t. I didn’t.
How do individuals respond and establish personal priorities about humanitarian questions — when their information sources suck? It may be a digression that interests you; but, it’s not what the post is about. Have another cup of coffee and reflect for a minute.
From the article: “In a year dominated by the war in Iraq and the Asian tsunami, only six minutes were devoted to conflicts in DR Congo and Chechnya. The remaining stories highlighted by MSF were not covered at all
“People all over the US tell us how much they want to show solidarity and do more to help others in crisis around the world. But how can they when a crisis is virtually invisible?” de Torrente said.”
I think the point of the article is the lack of reporting Paul, your’re taking this the wrong way. The news is THE NEWS, hence why the complete lack of coverage? The news is supposed to be subjective, this article is merely pointing out that it is not since a large humanitarian crisis was in effect swept under the carpet, the masses didn’t know about it. IT is cherry picking by the news corporations and or political agendas dictating what news is newsworthy. Is there any oil in those countries? I bet there aint.
It is cherry picking by the news corporations and or political agendas dictating what news is newsworthy. Is there any oil in those countries?
You know this all comes down to ratings, right? If they show famine in Africa, and people don’t watch, then they probably won’t repeat that coverage. Also, there’s a bit of a backlash and frustration with Africa’s constant problems happening over and over. Maybe the media are peremptorily deciding what we want to watch, but I would wager their guesses are pretty good, considering that’s their job and how they make money.
Oil and the money that flows from it makes the Middle East important as a region. Plus the Jewish, Arab conflict. Otherwise it would be a backwater like Africa, and ignored. But Nigeria has a ton of oil, and I don’t see much coverage of that country. Hmm, maybe our geopolitical interests are more directly affected by the Middle East and not people in Africa, who can’t even feed themselves.
The real tragedy is not the media, but the fact that famines in Africa keep happening again and again and again. There are monitoring systems in place, recommendations to governments on how to deal with food shortages in the markets, and hundreds of NGOs standing by to help out. But the governments of Africa can’t get their act together.
We can stand by ready to help out with hand outs, and it’s a shame that media attention is needed to spur the bulk of funding (there’s some good coverage in The Economist on how to fix this), but in the end the countries of Africa need to figure out how to fish for themselves, and how to cooperate. There is actually plenty of food grown on the continent to feed everyone.
All right. Let me give you another nudge. Accepting the corporate rationale that only beancounters get to decide on direction and content has always worked for a certain portion of any marketplace. The part sneered at by journalism icons like H.L.Mencken. Does that mean it should receive praise and support — on the basis of profitability? Because it tails along behind “popular taste” whatever the heck that is?
There was a time when a good deal of American reporting was respected worldwide. That’s over and done with. I think American cars still get more respect than American journalism — and American cars pretty much suck.
yeah, it seems like those issues whould be reported on becasue we dont get the majority of our news info from syndicated news (think cnn, fox, etc). Those news companies are just that, companies – they arent going to rock the boat by broadcasting items that the majority of their user-base might find… un-news-worthy (or the govt censors are working overtime these days)…
I think its funny when folks comment on Africa and how its a mess and “why oh why cant they figure it out”. They cant figure it out becasue african governing bodies are not concerned about the welfare of the people they supposedly “represent”. Its about power, mostly personal power – just look at the Mugabe debacle.
The point is that complaining about US journalism is pointless, because people are going to watch what they want to watch.
Now we have much more than the 3 channels they had during the “golden age” of American journalism. The airwaves have fractured and there are more choices than ever. Good news can be found. But apparently most Americans aren’t interested in that.
I can’t stand Fox News, but it’s hard to argue with success. I stick with the Newshour, PBS documentaries, Meet the Press, and This Week, but I can’t sit through NOW on PBS. You can get BBC and all sorts of foreign news for the price of digital cable. To each his own.
People decide what they are going to watch. If all the news channels were showing starving Africans, and they didn’t want to watch it , then they’d watch Oprah reruns or something else.
You complain that the media is all powerful, but they are at the mercy of the most ficky animal ever created.
Here goes – same song, new verse:
Once upon a time, news organizations with integrity reported the news, didn’t try to spin each story and provided a broad overview of the world. In the old days, the recent tragedies (e.g. tsunami) would not have received as much press, and there would have been more air time for other stories. The half-hour evening news on the three major networks was served up more like a required public service.
NOW, news is a business. FOX, CNN, USA Today, and every other conglomerate is a public corporation looking to maximize profits. When a tsunami hits, it’s a major event and has mass appeal. Americans can watch the news, read the reports, send donations and feel good that they’re helping the world. Viewers stay on the channel and people read the papers to see what’s changing day-by-day.
On the other hand, the starvation in Africa never changes. It was there twenty years ago, it’s there today, and it will be there a year from now. There’s no interest in watching it, because it doesn’t change.
Furthermore, seeing human suffering on a broad scale (even for a few minutes) makes vast groups of Americans uncomfortable. They start to feel a little guilty for having excess food and a super-sized house in the suburbs. As soon as a news report on something like this comes on (or even a Missionary commercial), people grab the remote and change the channel before the guilt kicks in. That’s bad for ratings and ad revenues go down.
The news fluffers are just giving the people what they want – fast moving, edgy stories with no guilt. After all, we didn’t cause the flood, but we can help!
Sorry to tell you this, but – you’re absolutely correct Paul. The “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality has been driving news for years. Unfortunately, I think the greed factor and blip-vert attention span of the average adult in the good old USA is making the situation worse every day. I guess the Internet and blogs will be our only salvation.
Some things money can not fix. personal behavior for one
Darn, what the heck did my wife put in my corn flakes??? I think I am agreeing more with paul and T.C. then with Ed !!!
Just to add my own two cents worth though,… I believe there is an element of over saturation.
A century ago, every city had several newspapers. They were almost entirely all print with few photos because cameras were expensive, heavy, and bulky. Much of the news was elaborated on and with a lot of editorial content. Often, the stories went past reality and were fabricated or blown out of proportion.
Skip ahead fifty years. Korean War.
Newspapers have slimmed down some. Photos are quite common due to many smaller, lightweight cameras. As a picture can say so much more then words can, the words suffered. Also, radio news was brief and only the headlines made on air. There were fewer newspapers as the agenda driven rags fell out of favor.
Skip ahead twenty five years. Viet Nam War.
TVs are common. Radios are universal. Newspapers have slimmed down to one or two per city. Journalists are around the world. Most journalists carried a 35mm camera and there were many moving cameras. To get their film to the editors usually meant sending it by air back to be developed and edited. There was often a two or three day delay between the event and broadcast. Now, however, the news reporting was built around the filmed events instead of the words used to describe what happened. The professional news reader has been born.
Skip ahead to today.
With modern digital cameras being so light and not requiring film developing, a recording of the event can be broadcast to viewers in a matter of minutes. Satellite transmission make distance a distant memory. Helicopters make transportation to spots easy, trips that took days now take an hour or less.
The broadcasters see that the best ratings come not from the news it self, but from the presentation. The “sound bite” is normal. In-depth reporting is reserved for 60 minutes or NOW. News readers are all well groomed and pretty. Many have never reported on a story in the field. Reading newspapers takes up time in our busy world so they continue to lose market share.
We quickly tire of death and destruction. Every year people’s attention spans shrink just a little more. And the news broadcasters know this and accommodate us. Do we care that there is another genocide in Darfur? Do we care that there is another famine in Africa. Do we care that a typhoon killed thousands in Bangladesh? Not really, we are bored by all that and have become inured to it.
Darn, I agreed with paul and T.C. Will wonders never cease?
Nigeria has a ton of oil, and I don’t see much coverage of that country.
Fair enough, I stand corrected. Let me just clarify though that I believe americans are on the whole very generous and goodhearted people, as witnessed by the enourmous donations to the tsunami disaster. I still stand by my point however that the networks do cherry pick stories, guess everyone here agrees with that anyway reading the posts. This indicates that there is a lack of humanity within the corporations, not the american people. The BBC World Service does a great job of covering little known crisis around the world, by having reporters from those countries highlight issues in a special report, called ‘From Our Own Correspondant’. They will always, by their very nature, be more worldy and subjective than the networks which compete for advertising revenue.