Bottom
line
Let's be real about what
you can or
should expect of the media in covering the Bam quake
By James M. Nugent
January 8, 2004
iranian.com
Mitra Sadrameli asks the following : "For
crying out loud, what has to happen in other parts of the world
before
we devote real time discussing their plight? Why is it that the
power outage
receives non-stop attention for three days and on the other hand
20,000
dead, more than 70% of a city demolished, a UN designated world
heritage
site's leveling flat, receives a passing mention?" [See: For
crying out loud]
And I'm left wondering what more can you
expect? On Sunday, 28 December, two days after the quake, the disaster
was the lead story for the New York Times and Los
Angeles Times online; the first top story on the CNN web
site; the fourth story on the Washington Post's
web site; and played in a prominent position on National Public
radio; and, for good measure, it was also the lead
story at the BBC's web site.
Of course those are just the news sites that I visit
on a regular basis. The
fact is that no American can go to an online web site, or likely
turn on the
news today, and not see or hear something about the Bam tragedy.
What this
boils down to is that for all of your own misperceptions about
coverage,
what there is right now is hardly a passing mention and I would
strongly
encourage anyone who doesn't think this significant coverage,
two days after
an event occurred, to get real about what to expect of the
U.S. or any other
press, with the exception of the Iranian press which I would
expect to be
covering this disaster with all the verve and vigor that the
American press
dedicated to the east coast blackout.
Here's reality: Few Americans know Iranians, have
any sense of connection to
Iran, if they can find where Iran is on a map (not very likely,
alas) they
have no clue where Bam is or why Bam is important to Iran other
than as any
other city. Iranians are not in this category of ignorance and
how they
react to this, and apparently what they are inclined to expect
of the
international coverage of this, would be a few orders of magnitude
different
than the average Americans.
But again, let's be real about what
you can or
should expect here. The story is front page news, still, and
it's competing
with many other stories. Here Americans are in fact more curious
and
potentially fearful of what's going on with Mad Cow disease
than they are
about the earthquake and its victims for the simple reason
that the former
is something that they believe may affect them or their families;
this is a
story, and the blackout, is one they feel may affect them personally,
the
earthquake just isn't in that league.
As I see it the crux of what the news coverage is
for centers on compelling
people to take an interest and to help in anyway they can to
assist people
in a part of the world they're not familiar with and whom they'll
likely
never meet -- how much coverage can and should be expected to
meet this end
before people just turn it off?
Maybe from an Iranian-American's perspective the
earthquake is getting too
little coverage, but from mine it's getting what it should and
what I think
should be expected for an event that's occurring 8,000 miles
away. I've sent
off what I can reasonably afford to the International Red Cross
specifically
to help with the earthquake and I hope many other Americans have
done the
same thing.
More coverage is not going to change what I've already
done,
though if the situation gets worse I would then start writing
to congressman
and senators if I felt my government was not adequately assisting
the
Iranian people. Bottom line, I think the coverage is doing
what is required
of it and there's only but so much one can expect for coverage
or interest
for anything that happens outside any country's borders that
doesn't directly affect that country >>> Bam
benefit concert, Palo Alto, Saturday, January 10
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