Tsunami Reveals 'News Gap' In U.S.

[Guest guest]

January 19, 2005: Satellite photos of coastlines eradicated, images

of utterly bereft mothers who had lost their children, accounts of

how people's daily lives halfway around the globe had been destroyed—

all these brought out the best and the worst of the U.S. media. They

also dramatized what we can learn, see and feel when the news media

break out of their U.S.-centric mode and actually pay more detailed

attention to the rest of the world. According to the Tyndall Report,

ABC, CBS and NBC alone devoted 157 minutes to the tsunami story

during the week of December 27-31, three times the coverage other

big stories got in 2004.

 

On the one hand, of course, news outlets are only now providing us

glimpses of life in Sri Lanka, Thailand and India because of this

massive natural catastrophe; otherwise, according to standard

journalistic routines, why pay attention to them? The countries

Americans heard about in 2003-04 were Iraq, for obvious reasons,

Britain, Afghanistan and Palestine. Most others remained invisible.

In fact, as we all saw, the networks had to rely on home video

footage at first because they have no bureaus in the region. And, as

a result, we nearly always see the people of these countries

(especially the women) as helpless victims.

 

On the other hand, much of the coverage has been deeply heartfelt,

has vaulted over American ethnocentrism, and has brought to our

attention groups of people and ways of living that U.S. journalism

hardly ever shows us. The story has been a powerful reminder of the

blinders our news media—especially TV news, including CNN—impose on

our global vision.

 

The coverage has been the equivalent of going through the secret

wardrobe in The Chronicles of Narnia, to reveal a teeming world of

work, love, family and loss we never get to see. Some have argued

that the Western media would never show images of white mothers

embracing dead children, or of stacks of dead Western tourists being

bulldozed into mass graves. But many of these images have not been

objectifying; on the contrary, they have driven home the commonality

of the human condition, despite enormous differences in wealth and

culture.

 

Sadly, we already know what will happen. The relief efforts will

continue, the headlines will become smaller and the window we had on

this area of the world will close again.

 

The disaster was also the latest dramatic demonstration of the

compassion gap at the rotten core of Team Bush. Not only did Bush

immediately make Scrooge look like Albert Schweitzer with his

initial, shameful offering of $15 million for relief, he also showed

himself to be completely out of touch with the instincts and self-

conception of the American public. He fully expected the rest of the

country to be as indifferent to and ignorant about the rest of the

world as he is. As he remained silent and on vacation at his beloved

ranch in Crawford, other horrified Americans began sending money to

all kinds of relief organizations. His initial offering—the moral

equivalent of offering a starving child a gum drop—was not only

insulting to the international community, it was deeply embarrassing

to Americans who see providing aid under such circumstances as

central to, dare I say it, our moral values.

 

The Guardian, unlike our own august news outlets, quickly reminded

its readers that the U.S. government has spent $148 billion on the

invasion of Iraq, and even when Bush the Grinch was forced to up the

aid pledge to $350 million, that was the equivalent of one and a

half day's worth of spending in Iraq.

 

Of course, mean-spirited isolationism and mass ignorance are Team

Bush's ultimate goals. This is the administration that has succeeded

in cutting Pell Grants for lower-income college kids—they want

people to be uneducated, credulous and uninformed. That's how they

get away with selling everything from WMD in Iraq to a fake crisis

in Social Security. Geographic ignorance is absolutely crucial to

their success.

 

But for how much longer will the news media help them out? Coverage

of international news on the networks has declined precipitously

since the mid-'80s, from nearly 3800 minutes in 1989 to just over

1800 minutes in 1996 at ABC (the leader) and from 3350 minutes to

1175 minutes at NBC. In 1988, ABC featured 1158 foreign bureau

reports; by 1996, that was down to 577 reports. Meanwhile,

publications like The Economist and the Financial Times are enjoying

increased circulation among business elites who need and want to

know about international affairs.

 

As Diane Sawyer, Dan Rather, Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams pack

their bags and head for the comforts of home, we can expect that

their employers will put the lens caps back on the cameras, and turn

our attention back to "news you can use." This, too, will be another

sad outcome, another opportunity lost, in the wake of this history-

reshaping disaster.

 

SOURCE: In These Times. Tsunami Reveals News Gap: The tsunami has

been a powerful reminder of the blinders out news media impose on

our global vision. By Susan J. Douglas

URL: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1882/