Democratic Underground - While the world turns a blind eye...

This link http://www.alertnet.org will take you to the site of the Reuters Foundation, "Alerting humanitarians to emergencies". I think it is well worth bookmarking for its coverage of humanitarian crises around the globe. The recent article below is one I found very interesting with regard to why the world seems to turn a blind eye to the terrible suffering in some African nations:

03 Mar 2004
Charities face dilemma: food parcels or press releases
http://www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/107832661891.htm

(Excerpt)

WHAT GETS A CRISIS NOTICED?

Journalists said an emergency stands the best chance of coverage if it has a high death toll; involves a population from the same background as the audience; has created suffering among children; can provide compelling visuals or eyewitness accounts; and has foreign policy implications for the journalist’s country.

“A crisis story is compelling for the press when it involves mass migration of people, ongoing violence, or significant death. It is compelling when there are visuals: refugee camps etc.,” one respondent said.

“It is less compelling when it is a story of chronic deprivation, or when the story is far from our comfort zone, i.e. Rwanda, Congo.”

That’s a tall order, ruling out many current emergencies for journalists in most countries.

This may explain the high level of “forgotten emergencies” identified by relief charities -- why there has been relatively plentiful coverage of Afghanistan and Iraq and relatively little of the huge loss of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the scourge of malaria in Africa.

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