In his latest column, Nicholas Kristof acknowledges that blame for passivity toward the ongoing genocide in Darfur does not lie entirely on Washington's shoulders. In addition to being invisible on the political radar, Kristof says it is also invisible on the media's radar, too often overshadowed by celebrity trials and other more popular stories:
"The real failure has been television's. According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year - and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes - about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.
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 ... And, incredibly, mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at universities) has covered Darfur more seriously than any network or cable station."
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1 comment:
I am sure he omitted FOX's hiring of independent counsel to investigate the Paula Abdul 'affairgate', because unlike his other examples it DOES have cultural significance.
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