You’ve got a billion people in chronic hunger, year in and year out (see http://www.whatnewsshouldbe.org/front-page-news/hunger-a-shame-on-humanity with statistics from 2007 which I need to update), and this gets little news coverage in spite of the death and suffering it causes to SO MANY HUMAN BEINGS – about a billion! That’s the reason this webpage was started – to address what news SHOULD be, that which effects the largest number of people in the most serious ways. Recently, because of a worsening drought near the horn of Africa, hunger has been getting some play in the mainstream news media, with even reporters themselves, seemingly for the first time, questioning why this news story is not being treated as it SHOULD be:
From CNN’s Anderson Cooper:
“600,000 children are on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations. 600,000 children. That should be a headline in every paper, every newscast, every day as long as this famine lasts. It won’t be of course, because we’ve come to accept these catastrophes as somehow inevitable events that we can’t do anything about until it’s too late. That’s not true of course, but it’s the way many perceive it. It isn’t until we see pictures of dying children that we feel compelled to take action. Sadly those pictures aren’t hard to find in Somalia today.”
Source: Cooper: 600,000 children are on the brink of starvation – Anderson Cooper 360 – CNN.com Blogs
From NBC anchor Brian Williams:
‘“What’s sadly common about this is, it’s been going on for some time, but the world is just taking note,” the “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams said that night.’
Source: Networks Step Up Coverage in Famine Zones – NYTimes.com
Address : http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/networks-step-up-coverage-in-famine-zones/?gwh=9118E189D61819F5DC6FC8B9B5D385B7#more-69579
Agencies have been begging for news coverage:
“I’m asking myself where is everybody and how loud do I have to yell and from what mountaintop,” said Caryl Stern, chief executive of the United States Fund for Unicef, a fund raising arm for the organization.
Source: Off Media Radar, Famine Garners Few Donations – NYTimes.com
Address : http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/world/africa/02donate.html
And even after the United Nations officially declared parts of Somalia a “famine” (which means “acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30 per cent”, see http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39086&Cr=Somali&Cr1) none of the mainstream U.S. news media outlets have even one reporter covering this story full time.
“The networks are rotating reporters in and out of the region, meaning that they do not always have a reporter there.”
Source: Networks Step Up Coverage in Famine Zones – NYTimes.com
Address : http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/networks-step-up-coverage-in-famine-zones/?gwh=9118E189D61819F5DC6FC8B9B5D385B7#more-69579
That’s NOT what news should be.