I watched the news and I saw the report that the Philippines had been hit with a terrible storm, which at that time was reported with anticipated deaths of 10,000. As the Filipinos were bracing for survival, I braced myself for a telethon. I was ready for the cashier at Walmart to ask me if I wanted to contribute something to the Philippine recovery. I was waiting for George Clooney, Bono, and Sting to make a plea for help. I waited and waited, but it didn’t happen
Not only was I never asked for money, but it stopped being
news. I finally took to the internet to
check on the fate of the Philippines.
What I saw surprised me, there was a telethon with happy smiling
celebrity faces answering the phones and collecting money, it just wasn’t here,
it was in the U.K. One of the reasons
offered for the outpouring of generosity in the U.K. was the U.K. Typhoon News
Coverage and of course, the Christmas spirit.
Which brings us to the issue of media coverage. It’s not that the story wasn’t covered, it
was. What happened though was that the
issue became politicized at a very early stage.
The Philippine media and politician’s seemingly misrepresented a story
by Anderson Cooper.
An interesting side note is the section of the newspaper
article that Anderson referenced written by the President of the Philippines who
counseled the foreign press on accuracy and instructed them to report on
uplifting stories of resilience and show the world how strong the Filipino
people are. This almost seems propaganda’ish
to me by the president’s attempt to influence media reporting.
In addition to the direct effect and circumstances regarding
typhoon reporting in the Philippines there is another issue that hits a little
closer to home. A recent Pew
report offered a look into partisanship within news organizations. The study tracked the amount of time
dedicated to the Typhoon versus Obamacare.
Without even looking into the difference in the tone of the coverage,
there was an obvious discrepancy in the amount of time they devoted to each
issue. The study was based on eight
hours of coverage. The most striking
example is Fox who spent seven hours and fifty-two minutes (7:52 / 8:00) on
Obamacare and only six minutes on typhoon coverage (0:06/8:00). CNN was relatively balanced in their
reporting of the issues devoting three hours and thirty-three minutes to
Obamacare (3:33 / 8:00) and four hours and fifty-eight minutes (4:58 / 8:00) on
the typhoon. Some of which was no doubt
related to Anderson’s defense.
Personally, I think it is sad that politics is playing a role in such a human tragedy. It is also sad that here in America we are so wrapped up in our own world and what is going on with Obamacare that we have failed to give our attention and time to the people of the Philippines. Honestly, I had not even noticed any of this before reading your post. That is really sad. Although the issue with Anderson Cooper brought a little more light to the situation, it still mainly emphasized on the criticism of Cooper rather than getting help to the Filipino people. I think it is terrible that the president is so overly concerned with media coverage and the government's image when there are so many people who are in need of help.
ReplyDeleteYou brought together a VERY good point in this point. It was very insightful. I remember the old telethons etc that used to happen with natural disasters. When Katrina hit New Orleans we had coverage everywhere and it was noted through previous discussions that part of that coverage was misconstrued. I think America typically only looks out for those that either interest us at that time or that have a connection with us. Haiti had a huge campaign in America because of its relativity and proximity to the US. I agree with Caitlin above that it IS most definitely sad that media is more concerned with covering America's issues when others are suffering far worst than we are especially when the issues that we have are caused by our own hands. Very good post!
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