Media and the Darfur Genocide

Paper Summary:

The paper examines mainstream and alternative newspapers and magazines in order to demonstrate how mainstream newspaper coverage of the genocide is woefully inadequate, while the efforts of alternative media sources are commendable. The paper highlights the wider repercussions of this failure and shows how the negligible coverage reveals the media's decades-long indifference and racism toward the inhabitants of Africa. The paper strongly asserts that newspaper editors must make amends by bombarding readers with daily accounts of the terrible slaughter.

Outline:
Introduction
General Analysis on the paucity of newspaper coverage on Darfur
How have the publications mentioned above differed in their coverage of the genocide
Repercussions
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The average American citizen will, sadly, know more about the politics of the popular television show American Idol than about the ongoing carnage in Sudan's Darfur region. The genocide in that war-torn country has raged for approximately four years and claimed over 200,000 lives, but these seminal facts have yet to jolt the inhabitants of affluent countries into action. Admittedly, it is somewhat churlish to blame these individuals, as most media outlets cheerfully ignore the distant atrocities and, at best, pay vague lip service to the idea that governments must intervene and halt the bloodshed."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bogert, Carroll. "Another Africa Calamity--Will Media Slumber On." Los Angeles Times 28 Apr. 2004. Carroll Bogert, an activist at Human Rights Watch, unveils the lethargy of the American media when confronted with distant genocides. Bogert concludes that said media is better at commemorating genocides than at actually covering them.
• Crawsahw, Steve. "Genocide, What Genocide?" The Financial Times Magazine 21 Aug. 2004. Crawshaw, of The Financial Times, attempts to discuss the media's relative indifference to Darfur as part of a larger indifference to Africa as a continent.
• Mother Jones Online <http://www.motherjones.com/>.
• Power, Samantha. "Dying in Darfur: can the ethnic cleansing in Sudan be stopped?" The New Yorker 30 Aug. 2004.Human rights activist Power offers a harrowing eyewitness account of war-torn Darfur.
• Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York: Harper Collins, 2003.Human rights activist Power offers a detailed analysis of several twentieth-century genocides and probes the media's and the government's preexisting notions on Africa and genocides.

More papers on Media and the Darfur Genocide:

• Analytical Essay # 133740 : "Media Coverage on the Genocide in Darfur"
• Analytical Essay # 90998 : "The U.S. Media and the War in Iraq "
• Book Review # 125961 : "Mass Media and the News"

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