After almost two weeks of constant news coverage of the tsunami horrors in South Asia, some rather odd questions are being asked by media critics and other writers around the globe.
Some wonder if news budgets would have been spent half as quickly, had the waves not obliterated areas frequented by tourists, such as Phuket in Thailand. One went as far as to ask if we would care as much if there weren’t blonde tourists affected by the destruction. I’d like to think that we’re not quite that shallow.
Toronto Star media columnist Antonia Zerbesias asks questions the motivation of the media saturation, and wonders if we as a people will stop caring when the cameras go home.
“What is driving this story — while embarrassing Western governments into upping their aid — has been the reaction of ordinary Westerners, the outpouring of generosity that has filled the coffers of the world’s charities to overflowing.
So, while there is the whiff of disaster porn on the airwaves, mesmerizing audiences, boosting ratings and choking Internet connections, the voyeurism and exploitation have been trumped by human spirit and connectivity.
But, when the tide of journalists now in Asia inevitably recedes, and the normal news cycle churns again, will media interest dry up?
Or can we hope that lives and deaths in hellish and dark places, now unrecorded by Western cameras, rise to the top of media attention so that the milk of human kindness never again dries up?”
Bingo.
When the rubble is cleared away, the last body buried and life on the Indian Ocean coastlines returns to normal, post-mortems will take place in every newsroom on the planet. News directors and assignment editors will have to explain their judgement calls and justify the exhaustion of their budgets. They’ll hear the daft questions being asked about why they did what they did, and I only hope that their collective response will be “because”.
I hope they will shrug and respond in this way, because for the first time in a long time, the media has done a huge favour for the global community. In bombarding us with images from the stricken areas, they have left us aghast and overwhelmed. They have made us reach out, not only to help those who have lost, but to appreciate what we have here at home. They have made us stop, think, and give. Will we lose interest when the cameras are turned off? Perhaps. But for as long as it lasts, the media has succeeded in jolting us out of our self-centred existences and motivated us to help our fellow man half a world away. Let’s run with that, and forget about the petty criticism.