International Hard News: Just Another Casualty?

During times of peace, our domestic media outlets often provide expanded coverage of international stories. It would seem that it has now become the sole responsibility of the individual to seek out information for themselves if they are interested in escaping the same overly analyzed and over reported news stories that the media exhausts on every channel for days at a time. Maybe the responsibility has shifted to the individual since we are now fully entrenched in a cyberspace-obsessed culture with the Internet providing a ubiquitous stream of information upon demand or perhaps, it is just another distraction?

So, it was after an online visit to The Guardian newspaper this morning as I followed links to an African news site when I realized the dearth of media coverage allotted to the ongoing humanitarian crisis throughout the continent of Africa. Could this be yet another casualty of war? I paused from my news gathering for a moment and reflected upon this simple question, “What should we be knowing about?” When I thought about that for a while, I felt a tinge of anger and resentment well up inside of me as I thought about the pre-packaged, slick and readily available news that is always accessible. Our newspapers and broadcasts here have been filled with rehashed and recycled reports of political scandals, celebrity gossip, and of course the endless debates about the war in Iraq.

However, all of the global issues that existed before the war began did not end and from the looks of it, those pre-existing conditions have worsened. For example, Zimbabwe has an inflation rate of nearly 2,000% while Mugabe is ordering that members of his opposition party be beaten in the streets of Harare. Nearly 100,000 people have recently fled from Somalia and civilians there are being killed in the capital and bodies desecrated in the streets. Did you know that the Janjaweed militias from Darfur are now crossing into Chad and killing villagers and forced at least 2,000 people to flee their villages just this past weekend? And as we all scratch our heads at the recent spate of tornadoes that have swept across the South and Mid-Western plains, were you aware that Madagascar has been being ravaged by a brutal cyclone season with reports of at least 130,000 people affected by the most recent one?

It makes you wonder if this absence of international news is a distraction from the fact that while billions of dollars are being spent on war in Iraq, many countries in Africa are ablaze with conflict, starvation, oppression and preventable epidemics. The United States is missing out on opportunities to provide humanitarian aid to these fragile societies. How outraged would most Americans be if they knew their money could be better spent on humanitarian aid and diplomacy, both of which would contribute to a more peaceful world.