World's 'forgotten' crises cry out for attention
LONDON, March 10 (Reuters)
All emergencies are not created equal.
A tsunami of biblical proportions roars out of the Indian Ocean,
kills up to 300,000 and prompts the public to empty their pockets like
never before as media coverage goes into overdrive.
In contrast, war in Democratic Republic of Congo kills nearly 4
million and leaves thousands traumatised by rape and machete massacres,
yet hardly registers in the global media.
Why do some humanitarian crises make the front pages while others
wait in vain for their turn in the spotlight? "(A tsunami is) simpler,
visual and more dramatic, in ways that both drought and conflict
aren't," said Paul Harvey of the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), a
British think tank.
A survey launched on Thursday by Reuters AlertNet, a humanitarian
news service run by Reuters Foundation, highlighted 10 crises aid
experts said had been neglected by global media.
The experts chose Congo, northern Uganda, western and southern Sudan,
West Africa, Colombia, Chechnya, Nepal and Haiti as the most neglected
humanitarian hotspots.
They also drew attention to the global AIDS pandemic and other
infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.
Those polled cited a raft of reasons why some emergencies are
"forgotten", not least the challenge of distilling complex crises such
as Congo's down to simple soundbites or finding a thread of hope to help
audiences empathise.
"The story is always the same," said Lindsey Hilsum, international
editor of Britain's Channel 4 TV news. "It induces despair. It's
expensive and dangerous, and one feels that there are no solutions and
no end to it all." Analysts said long-running humanitarian crises were
often difficult to package as fresh-sounding stories, while logistical
problems and tight budgets could also put off news editors.
In countries such as Zimbabwe and Sudan, governments routinely refuse
to give journalists visas, while reporting in Congo can mean hitching a
ride on an aid plane, trekking through the jungle or guessing when the
next ferry will arrive.
And all for a story unlikely to make the front page.
"If you had a similar natural disaster (to the tsunami) in Africa
three months from now, I don't think you'd have the same media coverage
(or) the same consequences, because it's only maybe once a year that the
Western public is willing to be moved by disasters on that level," said
Gorm Rye Olsen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies.
In the meantime, stories of geopolitical importance such as Middle
East turmoil and "the war on terror" hog what's left of the
international news agenda, analysts say.
"The world's obsession with Iraq has pushed to the margins many other
scenes of mass violence," said Gareth Evans, head of the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group think tank.
Without TV time, aid experts say the general public is unlikely to
donate in large quantities, as they did after the tsunami when
individual donations to charities outpaced initial offers from
governments, leaving them rushing to catch up. "The media is a huge
factor in getting people to be generous," Oxfam Great Britain's
humanitarian funding manager, Orla Quinlan, said. "If they're visually
engaged, that brings it home and makes it real to them."
But some researchers say the link between airtime or column inches
and donations is not clear-cut. They said the tsunami was an anomaly
because private donations are usually far outstripped by aid from
governments and international institutions.
"Governments give aid in places with political and strategic interest
to them," HPG's Harvey said. "That's why funding skyrocketed in
Afghanistan after 9/11."
Nevertheless aid workers say better media coverage of low-profile
humanitarian crises can still make a difference.
George Graham of International Rescue Committee UK said more coverage
of Uganda's war - where aid agencies say more than 20,000 children have
been abducted to serve as soldiers and sex slaves - could highlight it
as a test case for an international criminal court.
"Greater media engagement could have a really positive effect," said
Graham, IRC's East Africa programme officer.
Danish researcher Olsen quoted a letter from a Sudanese man, smuggled
out during heavy fighting in the south: "It maybe a blessing to die in
front of a camera - then at least the world will get to know about it,"
the letter read. "But it is painful to die or be killed without anyone
knowing it." (For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters
AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: [email protected]; +44 207
542 9484) |