Monday, January 15, 2007

Jokes and Consumerism Dominate Media: Human Event Stories Suffer

With numerous twenty-four hour cable news networks, a declining but still healthy print media and a plethora of local news outlets you would believe that what is news in this world would be covered. The human interest story that connects people with their fellow man should be an easy decision to cover. Unfortunately the media in America is not interested in items like that. Botched jokes and the latest gadget that is sold on gadget.com takes far more space in what we see and read than matters of life and death around the world.

Truly Equal points us to Doctors' Without Borders annual top ten list of underreported stores. Of these ten, seven minutes of airtime was dedicated, combined! The top ten are listed below in no particular order.


Somalia - Somalis Trapped by War and Disaster
Central African Republic - Fleeing Violence in the Central African Republic (CAR)
Tuberculosis - Increasing Human Toll Taken by Tuberculosis
Chechnya - Consequences of Bitter Conflict in Chechnya
Sri Lanka - Civilians Under Fire in Sri Lanka While Assistance is Limited
Malnutrition - Effective Strategies for Treating Malnutrition Not Implemented
Democratic Republic of Congo - Congolese Endure Extreme Deprivation and Violence
Colombia - Living in Fear in Colombia
Haiti - Violence Rages in Haiti’s Volatile Capital
Central India - Clashes in Central India

Where is the in-depth reporting on these issues? Is it too much work for our journalist community to send reporters to put these matters on the front pages of our newspapers and in the thousands of news segments taped daily? Perhaps the press believes that people want to be happy in a state of delusion and that George Foreman's seventh edition grill is much more important?

Earth to journalists, it is your job to cover the news, no matter what it is. Stop showing us garbage that you think will give you the best ratings and give us the truth!