‘Black’ out

 

‘Black’ out

 

By largely ignoring African crises, the Western media is setting a bad precedent. There’s also a whiff of racism.

 

                                  Reprinted from Meantime

 

 B F Firos

In this era of ‘new-age media’ and sophisticated news-gathering methods, one would expect catastrophes occurring at various parts of the globe to get deserving prominence in the media. But what has been happening is just the opposite. There is selective omission when it comes to reporting certain issues and events that take place in some parts of the world. This is especially true about the conflicts occurring in central Africa. An objective analysis would reveal that the level of murder and sufferings in Africa makes all other world problems fade in comparison, including the gory tales emanating from Iraq, Palestine or Afghanistan. Mass murders in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Somalia happen with such regularity, but the media tends to play them down. This blatant trivialisation or virtual blackout of the bloody happenings in this part of the world is indeed intriguing. Why is it that these conflicts receive so little or no attention of the world at large?  

A search for an answer brings out some unpleasant truths; truths that would question the very moral bearing and the so-called progressive outlook of the mainstream media. The majority of the Western media portray these conflicts in a simplistic vein. For them, it is "tribalism" that foments troubles in what they call the "Dark Continent"; here the same old colonial yardstick is used. So, in this fight among "various tribals", hundreds may get killed on a daily basis, which then need not be displayed on the front pages or in the main news. That is why when "rebels in Congo kill 100 civilians", all we have would be just a one-paragraph report by the Associated Press. In the course of this cursory reporting, there would be a cache of clichés like "rebels", "civilians", "internal strife", and "civil war". See how the media has been trivializing these cold-blooded killings by using some sugarcoated words like these. What is ‘civil’ in a war? What is ‘civil’ in a war?       

The point is, for the Western media, the life of a Black African is hardly important. For them, the Africans might as well be savages constantly at the throat of each other; what happens to these savages will in no way change the destiny of the world and its rulers. The poor Africans are also not a ready consumer of multinational goods. They are merely--as occasional TV footages show us—half-naked, bony men and women jostling with each other each time food packets are air-dropped.  

The under-reporting of the African crises is a prime example of callousness on the part of the Western news agencies and newspapers. These agencies have not thought it fit to have enough reporters stationed in the African continent to cover the crises. So, we don’t get any comprehensive analysis of the turmoil there, not even the ones seeping with Western prejudices as in the case of Iraq. In short, in the sidelining of the African Story, what we have is another instance of Western racism.  

Bosnia and the events there—be it mass rape or anything else—get immense coverage because, after all, it is in Europe. But the world gets to know only a smattering of the horrendous happenings in Congo—a country the size of Western Europe. In one rare instance of reportage, the US left-wing weekly, The Nation, recently carried a comprehensive story on Congo by journalist Jan Goodwin who reveals that the country witnesses whole-scale rape—from three year olds to those of over 70 years. Goodwin describes how Maria, a 70-year-old woman, was gang raped before her three daughters and five sons were murdered. The report also quotes a human rights worker who narrates the tale of a 30-year-old woman whose ears and lips were cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped so that she would not be able to identify her attackers. Doctors testify that 30 percent of the rape victims had their private parts pierced usually with spears and gun barrels. While bestiality reigns in Congo’s rural areas, the report adds, diamond dealers and businessmen from Tel Aviv and New York are feted and fawned upon by Congo’s armed group representatives in luxury hotels. Goodwin reminds us how these businessmen and armed groups foment chaos in this Central African country for their private gains.

The armed groups have been plundering Congo of numerous natural resources on behalf of their masters sitting in the citadels of democracy. Those rich minerals that are being siphoned off go directly to Western markets and outside to whet consumer appetites. Diamond, gold, cobalt, copper and coltan are the primary minerals being taken out of Congo; the jewelry you just bought may have in it raw materials that came from Congo (or perhaps Sierra Leone or Angola, two other African countries whose wars provide the West with cheap minerals). And the main component of your cell phone or laptop is the "pinhead capacitor", which is made from coltan, a mineral found in Congo. The business and vested interest is in keeping the conflict raging, as then the minerals can be shipped off dirt cheap.

Here’s the cruelty of it all: while Congolese blood flows, the outside consumer revels in luxury goods without even knowing that it is all tainted with blood. And the consumer in Mumbai or Texas can’t be blamed because his newspapers or television have never told him that what he is using has gory origins. He will never know about the kind of politics being played out in the African badlands; the kind of stakes involved there; and about the multinational powers that whip up trouble there.

One of the oft-offered journalistic justifications for the poor coverage of the African crises is that it is far too remote, and does not at all influence world events. So the media would, without any compunction, play down a massacre where about 200 people got killed in Angola or Congo. On the other hand, if some 10 or 20 people are killed in a bus accident, say in New York, it would be front-page material, and even editorials would follow. Such is the relative worth of life of an American and an African.  

Another justification for playing down such events is that the readers would be less interested to know the happenings occurring miles away. This is just absurd. Here media acts under the skewed theory which explains the relation between distance and news value. What is being taught in journalism schools about the relation between distance and news value is illogical and should be reviewed as it contravenes the cardinal purpose for which the media stands for. 

The African Story is indeed a glaring instance of the lack of social commitment of the Western media. The problem is also one of presupposing the interests of the readers and the powers-that-be in the media establishment deciding what is important for the reader and what is not. So, while the death of an American soldier in Iraq is ‘news’, the deaths of hundreds in any part of Africa seem to have no news value at all.  

The Indian media too is guilty of aping its Western counterparts when it comes to news selection. Here is an instance among hundred others: "Ugandan rebels kill 120", read a headline in The Hindu (February 23, 2004) of a one-column AP report. And it did not appear in the front page but among news briefs in the international section. But at least The Hindu carried it, while the same cannot be said of other national newspapers nor of the regional ones. Exactly two weeks after the Ugandan incident, the same paper (of course all other papers as well) cried out in banner headlines, on the front page, the blasts at Madrid which claimed 180 lives. So why is it that a blast in Spain becomes the lead news, while a similar disaster in Uganda is non-news? What is the criterion used here? Are the people in Uganda not human beings or are their lives not worth enough to be reported? Doesn’t it point to the obnoxious fact that our media is racial? These are questions begging to be answered. There’s something seriously wrong here, and is a reflection of the power imbalance in world affairs.  

The media`s marginalisation of the African crises reinforces the skewed assumption that these events have little to do with world politics in general. Whatever is taking place in this continent, it is assumed the average reader is not disturbed. Here, the very edifice of the term ‘news’ comes under the spotlight. What is news? Can a particular incident be considered news purely on the basis of the ‘interest’ of the ‘customers’ (readers)? And by the same yardstick, some other event may not be news at all, like the starvation deaths in Somalia.  

By the selective omission of certain events especially in Africa, the media has created an unsavoury precedent. While acting out the role of a market-oriented establishment giving out what pleases and attracts the reader, the news media is failing in its cardinal duty of telling the truth to the world. The media is abdicating its social responsibility by overly depending on glamour. What is needed is a change of conscience. Will the Western media as also the Indian kind, which boast of progressive leanings, take a hard look at this issue and re-think their policy? Will there be a change in their outlook on Africa?  

Contact: firos_bf@yahoo.com