I'VE BEEN PAYING TOO MUCH ATTENTION TO AMERICAN NEWS... HAVE YOU?
I found a very nice website, http://www.alertnet.org/ . It is the Reuters Foundation AlertNet, which says it is "alerting humanitarians to emergencies".
From just one look at it today, I learned quite a bit about election violence in Ethiopa, war in northern Uganda, political crises in Togo, what people are trying to do to end the problems in Darfur, food crises in Nigeria and North Korea, unrest in Haiti, U.S. stinginess on aid for Africa, and detailed information on problems with water, AIDS and ebola.
Why is it that we don't see very much news about these world concerns on American television? Is it simply that these stories just don't sell as much as stories about Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, missing children and teenagers, runaway brides, murders, etc.? Or does our government have motives regarding the kinds of things that occupy the minds of the public? Do the news networks and/or the government not want us to expand our humanitarian concerns, here at home or beyond our borders? The major news networks tell us what they want us to hear and see, after all. How much does our government affect what the major news networks tell us? If more international humanitarian concerns were made into news stories here in America, would the public pressure our government to spend more money on these internation problems (and on similar problems here at home) rather than on trying to build a world empire?
I know, I ask too many questions.
From just one look at it today, I learned quite a bit about election violence in Ethiopa, war in northern Uganda, political crises in Togo, what people are trying to do to end the problems in Darfur, food crises in Nigeria and North Korea, unrest in Haiti, U.S. stinginess on aid for Africa, and detailed information on problems with water, AIDS and ebola.
Why is it that we don't see very much news about these world concerns on American television? Is it simply that these stories just don't sell as much as stories about Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, missing children and teenagers, runaway brides, murders, etc.? Or does our government have motives regarding the kinds of things that occupy the minds of the public? Do the news networks and/or the government not want us to expand our humanitarian concerns, here at home or beyond our borders? The major news networks tell us what they want us to hear and see, after all. How much does our government affect what the major news networks tell us? If more international humanitarian concerns were made into news stories here in America, would the public pressure our government to spend more money on these internation problems (and on similar problems here at home) rather than on trying to build a world empire?
I know, I ask too many questions.
1 Comments:
I think they try to show what people are interested in. Right now Americans can barely deal with our problems, let alone those in the rest of the world.
I kind of go back and forth on this issue...I know on a moral level it's important to stay aware of the bad news. But on a mental health level I'm not so sure sometimes.
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