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Wednesday, July 27, 2005Subconscious Censorship in the Media?Nicholas Kristoff has a very good column on the media's (lack of) coverage of the Darfur genocide. He notes all the things the media apparently prefers to cover and makes a pretty convincing case that this isn't just a matter of there being so much going on that they can't get to it. I was struck by this observation: When I've asked television correspondents about this lapse, they've noted that visas to Sudan are difficult to get and that reporting in Darfur is expensive and dangerous. True, but TV crews could at least interview Darfur refugees in nearby Chad. After all, Diane Sawyer traveled to Africa this year - to interview Brad Pitt, underscoring the point that the networks are willing to devote resources to cover the African stories that they consider more important than genocide. [my emphasis]Umm. Isn't the Mainstream Media supposed to be superior to, say, blogs, because they undertake those risks and expenses to cover the hard stories? Or would my reading of all the BBC stories on Darfur put me above the average American newspaper in terms of serious inquiry into this very serious matter? (By the way, that's a hypothetical me, though I've been reading about Wilson/Plame, not Tom Cruise, the TurkeyBlog isn't going to beat the Times to the punch on Darfur.) Just one thought: What's going on in Darfur? Arab Muslims are killing Black Muslims in a genocide intended to extend Arab controlled Muslim lands. Is it just possible that a media ticked off about our efforts in Iraq and throughout the Middle East has a mental block on reporting about authentic Arab Muslims murdering left and right, particularly when the victims are fellow Muslims and the goals are far less noble than reclaiming the lost glory of Andalusia? If the powers that be in a predominantly white, Christian society were massacring Black Muslims, the MSM would know what to do. But to call attention to Darfur is to face the awful possibility that an Arab Muslim with a gun in his hand and America's disapprobation isn't always a freedom fighter. And then the black and white world of bad America, good everybody else that rules the media's thinking blurrs into shades of gray. I'm not saying that the American media leaders got together and said, The deaths of these Black Muslims are tragic but they run up against our storyline about Arab Muslims as a swell bunch of people who only turn to violence in response to Western oppression and invasion. But I do think the American media has a subconscious inability to perceive the importance of any story that includes the concept of Arab Muslim but not Bush's imperialism. Too bad for the folks of Darfur that the genocidal maniacs slaughtering them just happen to be indirectly tied to a group that the media wants to make us sensitive too, not wary of. Nicholas Kristoff says, If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.Let's try another one: If only the Darfur genocides were being committed by Halliburton. The Times would front it every day. 
posted by gbarto at 3:44 PM |
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