As Americans, we can rest well knowing that in the event of death from a catastrophic disaster, images of our mangled corpses will likely never appear on the nightly news or spread across the pages of American newspapers.  Our families will never have to suffer the indignities of watching news networks push the limits of censorship for higher ratings, as shots of our twisted, tattered bodies flash across the screen.  Unlike the less fortunate Malaysian (Sri Lankan, South Indian, Indonesian…) victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, Floridian victims of the devastating hurricanes in 2004 were spared the exploitation of their dead loved ones.  In Florida, camera crews took footage of demolished businesses and homes, of destroyed lives in the metaphorical only.  But this kind of consideration was apparently lacking on the shores of the Indian Ocean, as the images of bloated and decaying bodies of little brown children flooded newspapers and served to shock and awe American audiences.

Granted, international donations for tsunami relief were unparalleled, largely due to the intensity of the disaster and hence the presence of international media.  Perhaps if the hurricanes in Florida were covered tsunami-style—with shots of Floridian corpses sprawled out along debris-strewn beaches—then maybe Canadian donations would generate enough to help move survivors out of trailer homes.  Digressions aside, the point is: Americans, specifically those of a lighter skin tone, will never be graphically exploited in death, at least not by American media.  Even as the death toll climbs towards 1,700 in Iraq (www.defenselink.mil), showing an image of a U.S. soldier’s coffin is considered an act of unpatriotic deviance and profane subversion.  The Bush administration is well aware of the undesirable consequences when Americans see their soldiers bloody and dying in some foreign land for some forgotten reason. 

But that’s not to say war can’t be entertaining; there’s still plenty of dead Iraqis to fill the pages of the “War on Terror” section of the newspaper.  Of course, the public is so accustomed to photos of Middle East “terror” that car bombings in Mosul and suicide bombings in Gaza are indistinguishable: a scorched car engulfed in smoke, the subtle figure of limp body hanging half out the car door, and in the foreground, a hysterical shabbily dressed woman screaming, hands raised towards the sky.  And in the corner, a goat—just to authenticate the foreign-ness of the scene, because while violence saturates every society, the goat reminds us that this is indeed an uncivilized society.  The subtitle will inevitably be vague, “20 killed in latest attack as violence escalates in Iraq,” but if you check the photo’s credits you might find that it was taken by the AP two years ago, not in Iraq, but in Palestine.  It’s not surprising that stock photos are often used to lead foreign news stories (American Communications Journal), after all most Americans can’t differentiate between Iraqi victims and Saudi bombers.   

The Middle East is hardly unique as a casualty of media exploitation and stereotyping.  The problem stems from an outdated, yet pervasive American ideology that views the rest of the world as either threats or victims—suicide bombers and genociders on channel 6 and poor oppressed women with starving babies on channel 7.  This appears to be the only way we’ll take foreign news: violence and drama.  We’ve already seen how quickly the media moved on after the tsunami; perhaps one day a journalist will return to show Americans what Malaysians look like when they’re not searching for their dead children.  But I doubt that would do much for ratings.  By consistently portraying developing nations as places of death and endless tragedy, the American media are largely responsible for the misconceptions and ignorance of the American public.  (Media, Disaster Relief and Images of the Developing World) 

Coverage of African crises has been such that while we may not remember the names of the countries involved, we do remember the images of starving babies with bloated bellies and flies speckling sunken eyes.  What happens is: rather than explaining the essential details of the conflict in say, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a newspaper will rely on a graphic image from the latest clash with a simple 90 word explanation.  Ninety words is hardly enough to explain why 1,000 people die there everyday. (The World’s Ten Most Underreported Crises)  This display of incompetence by American media makes one question the purpose of covering an African crisis at all? 

During a conference of Third World visitors in D.C, an African stood to ask a question of a columnist: “Why is it that American Journalists don’t care about my country?”  The columnist responded by asking which country he was from and the man told him Uganda.  The columnist answer was, “Why the hell should I care about Uganda?” According to the Chicago Tribune, diplomats and press around the room gasped at the honesty of the columnist’s answer. (Akol, 21) So, what is the point of covering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in the DRC when the United States government has continued to avoid direct involvement and the situation is beyond the comprehension and compassion of the general public?  If you can make the story simple and the victims innocent, then the point of reporting any African tragedy, or any conflict abroad, is pure entertainment value.

References:

Akol, Jacob. “Foreign news, what foreign news?” New African, London.  Jan 2002. 21

American Communications Journal. <http://search.atomz.com/search>.

 “Media, Disaster Relief and Images of the Developing World,” Annenberg Washington Program, Communications Policy Studies, Northwestern University Media. 1993.

“The World’s Ten Most Underreported Crises.” Doctors Without Borders, 2004.

United States Department of Defense. <www.defenselink.mil>.