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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: EXTRA: Media neglect of Somalia
- Message-ID: <1992Sep4.004547.27238@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
- Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
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- Nntp-Posting-Host: pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Organization: PACH
- Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 00:45:47 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 117
-
- /** headlines: 221.0 **/
- ** Topic: EXTRA: Media neglect of Somalia **
- ** Written 4:34 pm Sep 3, 1992 by ggundrey in cdp:headlines **
- From: George Gundrey <ggundrey>
- Subject: EXTRA: Media neglect of Somalia
-
- /* Written 5:11 am Sep 2, 1992 by saskin in cdp:reg.africa */
- /* ---------- "EXTRA: Media neglect of Somalia" ---------- */
- Follow-up: Hunger in Africa - A story still untold
- By Steve Askin (c) 1992
-
- This article appears in the September 1992 issue of Extra!,
- published by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), 130 W.
- 25th Street, New York, NY 10025.
-
- The author hereby grants permission for reproduction on
- non-commercial electronic communications systems only. No other
- print or electronic reproduction permitted, except by permission
- of the author, who can be reached at saskin@igc.apc.org or Fax
- 1-212-749-9335
- _________________________________________________________
-
-
- [Editor's note: War-induced famine in Somalia became page 1 news
- after UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali complained in
- late July that western nations preoccupied with Yugoslavia were
- ignoring a far graver African crisis. On the day that Ghali spoke
- out, July 23rd, a New York Times editorial harshly criticized
- President Bush for saying nothing about Somalia while "a third of
- a country inches toward the grave." Yet - as the following report
- shows - the Times, like George Bush, has consistently ignored the
- suffering of that nation's war- endangered people.]
-
-
- Question: When does a famine threatening millions of human lives
- become news that fits the front page of the New York Times.
-
- Answer: When animals die.
-
- That's the rule news editors at the Times seemed to follow in
- July, when they belatedly found front page space for the dual
- emergency -- drought in southern Africa and war-induced famine in
- the Horn of Africa -- threatening millions of the continent's
- people.
-
- In a rare burst of Africa coverage during the week of July 5-12,
- the paper published five stories by Nairobi-based correspondent
- Jane Perlez on food-short African nations. Perlez' writing
- offered valuable insight into the continent's most troubling
- problems. Yet, by the choices they made in displaying her
- stories, Times editors re-proved a point Jane Hunter and I made in
- Extra! a year ago, when we complained that the U.S. press gives
- "more attention to the lives of animals - featuring safari stories
- on elephants, rhinos and other endangered species - than the
- specter of death from starvation haunting millions of human beings
- in Africa."
-
- The fate of 2000 elephants ("Zimbabwe Kills Starving Elephants for
- Food," July 5) was the subject of the only Perlez story to make
- page one that week. Not until the ninth paragraph did readers
- learn that, in addition to ending the lives of 2000 elephants,
- drought "has devastated crops from Mozambique across to Angola,"
- and threatened five million Zimbabwean people.
-
- Thus began a parade of African wildlife through the pages of the
- Times. On July 7th, a 28 inch Perlez report ("Science Times,"
- page 2) described the Zimbabwean black rhino's "last stand."
-
- On July 12, the Sunday travel section ran 38 inches of Perlez copy
- on elephant viewing at Botswana's $200+ per day game parks. That
- same day, the Times placed a woefully understated headline ("U.N.
- Observers Delay Visit to Somalia," news section, page 12) atop a
- 17 inch Perlez story on the world's most murderous human tragedy
- of 1992: the war-induced famine in Somalia.
-
- In total, the Times devoted 84 inches (excluding photos) over
- eight days to the three wildlife-centered stories from
- drought-afflicted nations. Endangered human beings were the focus
- of two less-prominently displayed stories totalling 41 inches.
-
- Not until July 19 did the Times find front page space for the
- Somali crisis, an emergency which has pre-occupied aid agencies
- since last fall, when the United Nations estimated that 4.5
- million Somalis faced potentially grave, war-induced food
- shortage. By the end of July, when the Times intensified its
- coverage of the Somali crisis, more than 25 percent of Somalia's
- children under five had already died, according to estimates by
- the international aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres. "An entire
- generation may disappear," if they don't receive immediate
- assistance, MSF warned at a July 22nd Congressional hearing which
- received no coverage whatsoever in the Times.
-
- Editing which puts animals first while humans die by the tens of
- thousands is inhumane in the most literal sense of that word. Yet
- the blame for Times inhumanity does not lie with Perlez, who packs
- considerable insight even into the safari stories her editors seem
- to prefer. In her Botswana travel piece, for example, Perlez
- highlighted African complaints about western wildlife enthusiasts
- who sometimes impose their priorities with scant regard for
- African realities.
-
- The most telling commentary on western neglect of African need can
- be found in Perlez' own July 12 story on Somalia. She uses a
- quote from a Red Cross official to spotlight the double standard
- in western coverage of human tragedy. After noting that 500,000
- Somalis will starve unless aid is immediately doubled,
- International Committee of the Red Cross Director Peter Fuchs
- stressed to Perlez that Somalia's human disaster is
- "quantitatively much worse than that in the Yugoslav republics."
-
- Can there be any doubt that -- if a half million white Europeans
- faced death in the Somali famine -- their story, like Yugoslavia's,
- would have long ago received the frontpage coverage it deserved?
-
- ENDS
- ** End of text from cdp:headlines **
-
-