The Tsunami really served to put everything in perspective for me. And I do mean everything. Not only have millions of lives been unalterably changed, but the true colors fo the American media has been revealed. As Americans donate money and send supplies, the media increasingly relegates the story to the bottom rungs of coverage. Sure, they spend a good amount of time on it, but the methods they use to cover it, and the stories they report just feel like they're missing the point.
The first big story was Hans, the two-year-old blond child from Sweden. While this lost child was certainly a tragedy, I couldn't help but wonder why the only kid on the nightly news that they're speeaking of is a blondhaired blue eyed European. Sri Lanka was the hardest hit nation of all those involved, and yet most of the reporters and news organizations are covering Thailand. Some of this coverage is pure hapenstance: Kevin Sites, the famous Iraq corespondant, just happened to be in Thailand during the tsunami, and thus, the NBC corespondant was able to cover the Thailand aspects of the story. But I have yet to see any news reports from Sri Lanka. Perhaps this is purely a factor of the difficulties involved with getting to the island. Perhaps it is because there were no tourist journalists there during the event. Perhaps it's because no one gives a rats ass about this tiny nation filled with small brown people.
Perhaps I'm bitching prematurely, but I've just had an immense urge to get over there and do anything I can to interview locals. All the coverage on TV involves interviewing white people at airports. There aren't even any heart sob stories about the local women crying over dead children with translations provided in subtitles. Sure, that would be exploitative journalism, but at least it owuld be exploitative of the people who live there rather than exploitative of the folks who could afford multi-thousand-dollar plane tickets and hotel reservations. A week earlier, these vacationers were dropping dimes on the platters of local bell hops, not paying any mind to the simple lives and difficult existences they live. Now, they're relying on the good will of these kind and generous people, who likely give their last crusts of bread to the pale Europeans who are stranded in these oceanside nations.
Maybe I'm not watching the correct news. My folks have cable, so I'm ingesting CNN, Fox, and even BBC World. I have yet to listen to NPR or the News Hour. I hope those stations are doing a better job. I, for one, don't care how many Americans died out of the 100,000+ dead. I do care how many dead are from each respective nation, and thus, were these broadcasts to break down the numbers by nations overall, I would be interested in the dead Americans. But only if the numbers were given as a whole pie.
Hopefully, there are some journalists out there right now in the real nitty gritty preparing the truthful stories, instead of waiting around LAX with a microphone and camera for the next flight out of Bangkok to come into the terminal. Hopefully, there are some translators still alive to communicate the grief and harrowing stories of the tribal folk who were not lucky enough too have hotel balconies to hold onto.
It's also a sad state of affairs to see how many public and corporate donations are coming in, compared to the amount our own government has contributed. People all over the world are giving with absolutely no reserve, and out government is hamstrung because the Bush-weasel has been deficit spending us into a hole. There's no money left for relief aid, and there's no military left to help those poor people.