It's been barely over two weeks since a natural disaster which in most ordinary years would be the deadliest of the year. The enormity of the tragedy, though, took a few days to impinge on my consciousness, and then I was off for a week to attend a high school reunion, and realized just this week that the whole event had slipped my mind.
Over 80,000 confirmed dead, hundreds of thousands homeless, disaster relief the most difficult ever, and it had slipped my mind? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with our media? Did someone make an executive decision that Americans were just too fatigued by disaster, and we would spare them the 'hype' of this particular set of unfortunates?
I just scanned the major news outlets on the web, and most of them don't even have a link from the front news page related to this tragedy. Sure Wilma is bearing down on Florida, and deserves the top spot right now, but over a dozen other stories are sharing its headlines, while this deadly quake has been shoved to a scant mention and link on the World page. If I recall the tsunami remained front page news for weeks, yet here with a tragic dearth of emergency response, the major news media seem to be choosing to just skip this inconvenient tragedy.
A recent diary by media girl at DailyKos decries the lack of attention being paid to this by bloggers as well. Well, it's not too late to help, so let's get creative and think of ways to challenge others to dig deep, even as we challenge ourselves to do the same.
I know I am suffering from donation fatigue myself this year, with the tsunami, West Africa and Southern Africa famine, and Katrina already making this a record donation year for me. But Mercy Corps and other relief agencies are still out there ready to turn our cash into relief, so I am recommitting myself to fundraising for Pakistan two or three times as much as I shelled out myself for tsunami relief. If your company matches your donations, and you are not already at the limit of what they will match, I urge you to dig deep yet again and be a part of alleviating this suffering.
Showing posts with label natural disaster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label natural disaster. Show all posts
Monday, 24 October 2005
Sunday, 28 August 2005
Gasp!
Thoughts and prayers for the people of the Gulf Coast.
Just turned on the evening news to hear a doomsday-like prognosis for New Orleans in the path of Katrina read straight from the National Weather Service. Their latest on-line description sounds like a slight softening, but still plenty terrifying. My heart goes out to all affected.
[UPDATE: I found a copy of the warning that I heard read on the news. Based on the devastation which has hit the fragile city of New Orleans in spite of the storm's eastward migration and slight downgrade, it is clear that the warning was not hyperbole.]
Just turned on the evening news to hear a doomsday-like prognosis for New Orleans in the path of Katrina read straight from the National Weather Service. Their latest on-line description sounds like a slight softening, but still plenty terrifying. My heart goes out to all affected.
[UPDATE: I found a copy of the warning that I heard read on the news. Based on the devastation which has hit the fragile city of New Orleans in spite of the storm's eastward migration and slight downgrade, it is clear that the warning was not hyperbole.]
Friday, 31 December 2004
Charity & Media Attention
As the enormity of the devastation caused by the great slosh of the Indian Ocean unfolds, the world looks on in horror, while many respond with their pocketbooks or their service to the impacted shorelines. This story IS getting the attention it deserves, displacing the inanities that usually get top billing on the local TV news. I still remember the last such enormous tragedy, the 1991 typhoon in Bangladesh, which must have received much less attention, as I've been surprised by how few remember it today. Though the death toll of 138,000 was comparable, the devastation was confined primarily to Bangladesh, which likely contributed to its having received less attention.
Recognizing that tragedies need a response regardless of how much media attention they receive, for my own donation to Mercy Corps I chose the "Where Most Needed" category, allowing the organization to funnel the money to Sudan, for instance, if the overwhelming response to the tsunami has left it or other tsunami-unrelated efforts underfunded.
Journalist Mathew Maavak, near the scene of the tragedy in Southern India, gives a mixture of on scene reporting and insightful reflections in its aftermath. His home page also accidentally pointed me to the writing of David Brin, who another friend coincidentally had just been telling me about in the previous week. But that's fodder for another post.
Recognizing that tragedies need a response regardless of how much media attention they receive, for my own donation to Mercy Corps I chose the "Where Most Needed" category, allowing the organization to funnel the money to Sudan, for instance, if the overwhelming response to the tsunami has left it or other tsunami-unrelated efforts underfunded.
Journalist Mathew Maavak, near the scene of the tragedy in Southern India, gives a mixture of on scene reporting and insightful reflections in its aftermath. His home page also accidentally pointed me to the writing of David Brin, who another friend coincidentally had just been telling me about in the previous week. But that's fodder for another post.
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