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LONDON (Reuters) - All emergencies are not created equal.
A tsunami of biblical proportions roars out of the Indian Ocean, kills up to
300,000 and prompts the
public to empty their pockets like never before as media coverage goes into
overdrive.
In contrast, war in Democratic Republic of Congo kills nearly 4 million and
leaves thousands
traumatised by rape and machete massacres, yet hardly registers in the global
media.
Why do some humanitarian crises make the front pages while others wait in vain
for their turn in the
spotlight?
"(A tsunami is) simpler, visual and more dramatic, in ways that both drought
and conflict aren't," said
Paul Harvey of the Humanitarian Policy Group <HPG.L>, a British think
tank.
A survey launched on Thursday by Reuters AlertNet, a humanitarian news service
run by Reuters
Foundation, highlighted 10 crises aid experts said had been neglected by global
media.
The experts chose Congo, northern Uganda, western and southern Sudan, West
Africa, Colombia,
Chechnya, Nepal and Haiti as the most neglected humanitarian hotspots.
They also drew attention to the global AIDS pandemic and other infectious diseases
such as
malaria and tuberculosis.
Those polled cited a raft of reasons why some emergencies are "forgotten",
not least the challenge
of distilling complex crises such as Congo's down to simple soundbites or finding
a thread of hope to
help audiences empathise.
"The story is always the same," said Lindsey Hilsum, international
editor of Britain's Channel 4 TV
news. "It induces despair. It's expensive and dangerous, and one feels
that there are no solutions and
no end to it all."
'ONE DISASTER A YEAR'
Analysts said long-running humanitarian crises were often difficult to package
as fresh-sounding
stories, while logistical problems and tight budgets could also put off news
editors.
In countries such as Zimbabwe and Sudan, governments routinely refuse to give
journalists visas,
while reporting in Congo can mean hitching a ride on an aid plane, trekking
through the jungle or
guessing when the next ferry will arrive.
And all for a story unlikely to make the front page.
"If you had a similar natural disaster (to the tsunami) in Africa three
months from now, I don't think
you'd have the same media coverage (or) the same consequences, because it's
only maybe once a
year that the Western public is willing to be moved by disasters on that level,"
said Gorm Rye Olsen, a
researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.
In the meantime, stories of geopolitical importance such as Middle East turmoil
and "the war on
terror" hog what's left of the international news agenda, analysts say.
"The world's obsession with Iraq has pushed to the margins many other
scenes of mass violence,"
said Gareth Evans, head of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think
tank.
Without TV time, aid experts say the general public is unlikely to donate in
large quantities, as they
did after the tsunami when individual donations to charities outpaced initial
offers from governments,
leaving them rushing to catch up.
"The media is a huge factor in getting people to be generous," Oxfam
Great Britain's humanitarian
funding manager, Orla Quinlan, said. "If they're visually engaged, that
brings it home and makes it real
to them."
DOES MEDIA MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
But some researchers say the link between airtime or column inches and donations
is not clear-cut.
They said the tsunami was an anomaly because private donations are usually far
outstripped by aid
from governments and international institutions.
"Governments give aid in places with political and strategic interest
to them," HPG's Harvey said.
"That's why funding skyrocketed in Afghanistan after 9/11."
Nevertheless aid workers say better media coverage of low-profile humanitarian
crises can still
make a difference.
George Graham of International Rescue Committee UK said more coverage of Uganda's
war --
where aid agencies say more than 20,000 children have been abducted to serve
as soldiers and sex
slaves -- could highlight it as a test case for an international criminal court.
"Greater media engagement could have a really positive effect," said
Graham, IRC's East Africa
programme officer.