Africa? What’s that?
Public Eye has a fascinating entry on the dearth of news on Africa. While the article concentrates on broadcast news, it is still an illuminating example of media think….
Famine in Niger, the war in Sudan and the ongoing AIDS crisis in Africa are a few of the topics that aren’t often addressed on television news in particular. When they answered questions for us, both Michael Bass, senior executive producer of “The Early Show,” and Randall Joyce, a CBS News producer based in London, brought up Africa when asked what isn’t being covered enough at CBS News.
There are others within the network who agree. David Gelber, a producer at “60 Minutes,” says that while programs like “60 Minutes” and ABC News’ “Nightline” continue to do stories on the AIDS crisis and other conflicts in Africa, “In general, in network news, the fact that 30-40 million people have AIDS or are HIV positive in Africa is not on the radar screen. If they were Europeans that were dying, it would be a different matter.”Gelber continues: “There are lots of countries where we aren’t covering things but when you have an epidemic with the proportions of the Plague, it seems to me that warrants more coverage than we’ve been getting.”
Hmm..CNN has covered this story recently. Maybe they need to watch once in a while.
Comment by Anonymous — October 14, 2005 @ 10:20 pm
What’s that? That’s my home and I’m a real one too…NOT African American. Ask Jeff Koinage that, CNN’s African bureau Chief based in Nigeria…my actual country. Jeff’s been in town lately covering New Orleans.Somebody better start covering Africa. Maybe I should go back home and cover it for CNN!
Comment by Kemilane — October 15, 2005 @ 2:38 pm
CNN, FNC, MSNBC, and the main network news certainly have not covered this almost at all. I think Anderson Cooper was there for a week or two but that was about it. When you consider how enmormous the loss of life is and how miserable the confitions are in Africa right now this should be a near-leading story every night and something should be done about it.
Comment by AnonymousHere — October 15, 2005 @ 4:49 pm