media coverage and natural disaster

MEDIA COVERAGE OF NATURAL DISASTERS
PROJECT REPORT
Submitted to Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi
In fulfillment of the requirement for the course BJ (MC) 306 of
Bachelor of Journalism and (Mass Communication)
By
ANAJNI KUMAR SINHA
B.J.M.C VI Semester , Enroll No. 04111702403


Tecnia Institute of Advanced Studies, Madhuban Chowk, Rohini, Affiliated to GGSIPUniversity,
2006



PROJECT REPORT

CONTENTS

Introduction
Tsunami Disaster
Media and Natural Disasters
Disasters and Television
Western interests
Differences in media coverage
Conclusion
Bibliography



CHAPTER ONE

Introduction


1.01 Relevance of report
While this project typically does not provide coverage of natural disasters, occasionally, events are either of global significance, or involve a number of issues that result in some mention here. Unfortunately, I do not have the resources, time, or capacity to provide up to the minute coverage on natural disasters.
The mainstream media, when it does cover a major natural disaster, oftentimes does well at providing details of what happened, so I cannot provide anything extra here, typically.
Just the second half of 2005 alone seems to have witnessed a number of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, ferocious hurricanes, mudslides, floods, droughts, forest fires, failing crops, and more. Yet, we have had intense media coverage of some of these, but weaker or almost no reporting of others. Why is that?
While there are legitimate and practical constraints at times, when news outlets broadcast or print their “world news” segments, it seems the global stories selected are often based on local drivers rather than a drive for truly global coverage.

1.02 Objectives
Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods can often come at the least expected time. Others, such as hurricanes and cyclones are increasing in severity and destruction. Typically, the poor are the worst hit for they have the least resources to cope and rebuild. This part of the research look at some of these issues.
1) Asian Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster.
2) Media and Natural Disasters.
3) Differences in media coverage.

1.03 Objectives in briefs
one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history (measuring 9 on the Richter Scale), struck just off Sumatra, Indonesia, in a fault line running under the sea. The rupture caused massive waves, or tsunamis, that hurtled away from the epicenter, reaching shores as far away as Africa. At least 250,000 people were killed and the livelihoods of millions were destroyed in over 10 countries. This has been one of the biggest natural disasters in recent human history
Media coverage of natural disasters seems to vary a lot depending on the disaster. Is it selective? Why do some regions get more attention than others? Even when millions have died in a region from conflict and war, how is it that a disaster that claims less in lives — sometimes in the same area, as in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo — will bring in media interest and coverage? 2005 has recently seen a number of disasters and relief efforts, from the Asian tsunami, to the severe hurricanes and storms in the Caribbean, the earthquake in South Asia (Pakistan and India), and drought in parts of Africa. How has the media covered these?


















CHAPTER TWO

Asian Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster

one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history (measuring 9 on the Richter Scale), struck just off Sumatra, Indonesia, in a fault line running under the sea. The rupture caused massive waves, or tsunamis, that hurtled away from the epicenter, reaching shores as far away as Africa. Over 250,000 people were killed (as of writing — this final figure is expected to rise further) and the livelihoods of millions were destroyed in over 10 countries. This has been one of the biggest natural disasters in recent human history.
Please note, this page cannot aim to provide up to date detailed coverage of events as they unfold, as it is beyond my scope and ability. Some of the mentioned statistics may likely change very quickly. For such information, please see the section below. Instead, this page provides an overview of some of the broader issues that this event has highlighted.
2.01 Table of contents for this cahpter
This web page has the following sub-sections:
One of the largest earthquakes in recorded history
Enormous Death toll and Devastation
Greatest ever peacetime relief operation underway
Aid in the context of Third World Debt
Will the world keep its promised pledges?
Financial Markets and Economic Impacts
Tsunami Warning System. Could impact have been minimized?
Rebuilding Broken Political Bridges
Almost as many children die each week around the world

2.02 One of the largest earthquakes in recorded history
Measuring 9 on the Richter Scale, the earthquake that hit under the sea near the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra was the strongest earthquake in the world for 40 years.
The massive 1,000km rupture along the Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates resulted in huge tsunami waves (or sea surges) crashing into coastal areas across south and east Asia, even reaching eastern Africa.
Source: 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, Wikimedia Commons [Larger Map]
Countries affected were:
Indonesia
Sri Lanka
India
Thailand
Malaysia
Burma
Bangladesh
Maldives
Seychelles
Somalia
Kenya
Tanzania
Madagascar
South Africa
2.03 Enormous Death toll and Devastation
Even as of writing, the real figure of how many were killed is unknown. Current estimates are that at least 250,000 people have been killed, which as well as local people, include thousands of tourists. Unfortunately, this number is expected to rise and the true, exact number may never be known.
The BBC also lists the worst recorded disasters in recent history, and shows that this tsunami disaster is one of the worst. Their information is tabulated as follows:
Natural Disasters Source: Tsunami among world's worst disasters, BBC, December 30, 2004
Year
Where
How many killed
Type of disaster
2003
Bam, Iran
26,271
Earthquake
1976
Tangshan, China
242,000
Earthquake
1970
Bangladesh
500,000
Cyclone
1923
Tokyo, Japan
140,000
Earthquake
1887
Huayan Kou, China
900,000
Yellow River breaks its banks
1896
Japan
27,000
Tsunami
1815
Sumbawa Island, Indonesia
90,000
Volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora
1556
Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan provinces, China
estimated 830,000
Earthquake
(The BBC article cited also lists other disasters and has more information.)
For those who have survived, the future looks bleak as whole communities have been wiped out, and many of the survivors have been left homeless. The United Nations estimates that some 5 million lives have also been affected.
There is now great concern that disease will result from poor sanitation and lack of clean water. In addition, it is feared that there will be a proliferation of endemic disesases as a result of the stagnant pools of water that have been created. It is feared that these will claim just as many lives as the waves did.
This disaster also has to be taken in the context of on-going problems. Some regions, such as north eastern Sri Lanka, or Aceh in Indonesia, have seen violent conflicts for many years, as separatist rebels struggle with the government. For example, the United Nations reports that many landmines have been dislogded by the tsunamis in Sri Lanka. These were planted during the long-running civil war. The tsunami waves have spread them to other areas, and no-one would know where, exactly. As people slowly return to their homes and villages, they could face yet more problems.
The same United Nations report above, also notes that some World Heritage sites may have been affected, and the damage is currently being assessed.

2.04 Greatest ever peacetime relief operation underway
This is an unprecedented global catastrophe and it requires an unprecedented global response.
— UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, quoted from UN urges “special” wave response, BBC, December 30, 2004
The United Nations says this is the largest ever relief operation it has undertaken.
As the World Bank reports, U.S. President Bush says America will lead a global relief effort, creating a coalition of US-led countries.
The US is often regarded as hostile to the United Nations, the premier international body, and so this coaltion effort would appear to conflict and overlap with the enormous world wide, United Nations-led, relief operations.
The BBC notes, “[US Secretary of State, ] Mr Powell said the UN had chief responsibility for co-ordinating the aid effort, despite a move by Washington to set up a core group of donor countries with India, Australia and Japan.”
The UN head for this massive effort himself has said that this coalition is welcome, and complimentary to the United Nations efforts, not counter-productive.
Aid from people, governments, and various organizations around the world has resulted in impressive amounts in a short time. For example, Tsunami aid: Who's giving what, BBC, January 6, 2005 lists the following as government aid:
Australia: $810m over 5 years (half on bilateral loans)
Germany: $689m
Japan: $500m
EU: $623m
US: $350m
World Bank: $250m (diverted from existing programs)
IMF: $1bn in emergency loans
Norway: $182m
Asia Development Bank: $175 (diverted from existing programs), $150m in new loans
UK: $96m
Italy: $96m
Sweden: $80m
Denmark: $75m
Spain: $68m
France: $66m
Canada: $66m
China: $63.1m
South Korea: $50m over next three years
Netherlands: $34m
Saudi Arabia: $30m
Qatar: $25m
Switzerland: $24m
But many countries have also seen large private donations, some exceeding their government's donations. The same BBC article also lists some of those:
Australia: $88m
Germany: $200m
United States: $120m
Norway: $60m
Britain: $189m
Italy: $20m
Sweden: $60m
France: $49m
Canada: $57m
South Korea: $13m
Netherlands: $35m
Saudi Arabia: $31m
Switzerland: $39m
Reuters lists many other examples of public responses including businesses (though it is not clear if these numbers get included in the private contributions).
By the time you read this, these numbers above are likely to be out of date, so please consult the sources listed above for updated numbers.
In addition to the above numbers, a lot more has also been offered, such as military aid.
Even though much has been pledged, as the BBC (mentioned above) also noted, “Delivery of aid remains a problem as much of the region's infrastructure has been shattered.” Some aid is not getting to areas that need it urgently, such as parts of Aceh.
Charity organizations and groups, such as the Disasters Emergency Committee in the U.K., (the main emergency organization), are stressing that less than a couple of cents for each dollar is going to administration costs. Furthermore, they suggest that people pledge money rather than food and other items, as this money can be spent nearer the location, so that things can be bought cheaper, and that local industries in affected countries can benefit, and that the relief experts can best determine what needs to be purchased.
In addition, charities and humanitarian organizations are raising the concern that attention must also turn to medium and long term rebuilding, as mainstream interest in relief and disasters typically lasts only while it makes for senstational headlines.

2.04 Aid in the context of Third World Debt
As can be seen above, generous aid has been provided in hundreds of millions of dollars. Crippling Third World debt however, is in the hundreds of billions:
The Agence France Presse reports Indonesia's public debt totals some $130.8 billion and Somalia owes $2.5 billion, according to figures supplied by the World Bank. Other tsunami-hit countries have debt burdens ranging from the Maldives' $202.6 million to India's $82.9 billion, Thailand's $58.2 billion and Malaysia's $48.3 billion.
— Bush Says America Will Lead A Global Relief Effort, DevNews Media Center, World Bank, December 30, 2004
Odious third world debt issues are often ignored by the rich nations, or promises to deal with them have often turned out to be hollow. (This site's section on third world debt has more about how it impacts poor countries' ability to develop, alleviate poverty, and rebuild from disaster.)
Against the backdrop of this disaster's recovery and rebuilding, this issue must surely be addressed in depth. Rich countries, the World Bank and the IMF have already indicated that there will be some early discussions and meetings to see how to deal with this, at least precluding any early criticism.

2.05 Will the world keep its promised pledges?
Charities and the United Nations are also warning that based on previous experiences, large pledges of donations can often be reduced later. The following are some examples of how this happens:
Governments may renege on their pledges;
Double accounting may occur where some of the promised money is actually diverted from existing aid;
Less is actually delivered.
The British newspaper, The Guardian, captures this and is worth quoting at length:
Charities and international bodies say they fear that much of the money pledged so far to help the emergency in southern Asia may not materialise because governments traditionally renege on their humanitarian pledges.
...
But UN OCHA spokesman, Robert Smith, told the Guardian: “We should be very cautious about these figures [of massive aid pledges]. Let's put it this way. Large-scale disasters tend to result in mammoth pledges which... do not always materialise in their entirety. The figures look much higher than they really are. What will end up on the ground will be much less.”
Rudolf Muller, also of UN OCHA, said: “There is definitely double accounting going on. A lot of the money will be swallowed up by the military or will have been been diverted from existing loans.”
A spokesman for the Overseas Development Institute, Britain's leading aid analysts, said: “The research evidence is that the immediate response to natural disasters involves some new money, but that rehabilitation needs are often met by switching aid money between uses rather than increasing total aid to the countries affected.”
The disparity between government promises and the delivery of emergency and rehabilitation aid can be extreme. Iranian government officials working to rebuild Bam, destroyed by an earthquake exactly a year before the Asian tsunami, last week said that of $1.1bn aid promised by foreign countries and organisations only $17.5m had been sent.
Similarly, more than $400m was pledged by rich countries to help rebuild Mozambique after floods in 2000, but according to its public works minister, less than half was delivered.
The worst example was Hurricane Mitch, which in 1998 swept through Honduras and Nicaragua, killing more than 9,000 people and making 3 million homeless. Governments pledged more than $3.5bn and the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the EU promised a further $5.2bn, but less than a third of the money was ever raised.
Similarly, emergencies in Gujarat, Bangladesh and central America in the past three years have mostly not received all the money promised. The humanitarian emergency in Afghanistan attracted more than $700m of pledges, but less than half that has been sent. Of the $100bn promised for debt relief, only $400m was received.
— John Vidal and Jamie Wilson, $2bn pledged, but will the world keep its promises?, The Guardian, January 3, 2005
(IPS also reports this in a news article titled: UN, Relief Groups Fear Aid Falling Behind Pledges and has some additional details.)
BBC aired its monthly public debate programs, Question Time. In the program on January 6, 2005, former UK government minister for development, Claire Short, noted that a lot of pledged money from governments is old money already assigned for other projects, which will now be redirected to this. However, what she also added was that it was sad that in effect, it was taking money from the poor to give to others in need.
This section on third world debt also has more examples of this, where countries have been promised debt relief, but sometimes it has never happened.


2.06 Financial Markets and Economic Impacts
“The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday it was impossible to estimate the economic costs of Sunday's deadly earthquake and tsunami but cautioned the toll to individual countries will be enormous.” (World Bank and Reuters)
Soon after news broke of this devastating event, business news shows reported drops in value of affected nations' currencies. A global markets expert interviewed on BBC (December 30, 2004) described investors and the general financial system as being “callous” at such times, as nervous investors naturally think about their own investments first and move money away from such areas.
The irony for poor countries especially, is that this would perhaps be the time that they really need stable financial systems to help in rebuilding.


2.07 Tsunami Warning System. Could impact have been minimized?
Many are asking why there wasn't a warning system in place or if anything could have been done to warn people.
Scientists knew the earthquake had occurred very soon after the event, but because no international warning system had been put in place in the Indian ocean, they didn't know who to contact. The rich countries in the Pacific (such as Australia, Japan and the United States), who also suffer far more from tsunamis, do have such a system in place amongst them.
As a cruel irony, just a month or so before this disaster struck, nations around the Indian ocean had agreed that they did not need a warning system. The costs for poor countries for such a system are considerable, and the likelihood of a tsunami is very small. Time has provided cruel hindsight, and now affected nations in the Indian Ocean will be installing a warning system in the region.


2.08 Rebuilding Broken Political Bridges
At such a devastating time, it is hard to see anything positive coming from this, but perhaps this tragedy will bring together different groups of people.
IPS reports, for example, how this disaster is creating temporary rapprochement between ethnic groups in Sri Lanka that stayed away from each other despite a three-year ceasefire between the government and Tamil separatist rebels.
During this relief effort, there seems to be cooperation between United Nations and US-led efforts. Various nations are helping each other, some who may in the past have not been as friendly.
At the individual level, moving stories abound of how local people and tourists have helped each other in this crisis.
These and many other examples not mentioned here shows that in the face of real devastation, peoples of the world can work together for common goals and help each other. Whether this can last beyond the immediate aftermath, is something we can only hope for.

2.09 Almost as many children die each week around the world
According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day:
Every day, the equivalent of a major earthquake killing over 30,000 young children occurs to a disturbingly muted response. They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.
— Progress of Nations 2000, UNICEF, 2000
That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years age, each year, die due to poverty. And what if the definition of child was children under the age of 6, or 7, or 8, for example?
The overwhelming response to the tsunami disaster shows that if we want to, we can deal with world problems. But it also shows that we sometimes do not pay the same attention to even worse disasters (ones which are often man-made). It is also revealing how leaders of the rich countries and the media can be moved so positively for the tsunami disaster, but comparatively mention nothing of these needless deaths that have been occurring for many, many years.
One hopes that the heart-felt generosity of the ordinary public around the world will mean more interest in these wider social and global issues, and that this time, the media and world leaders cannot ignore other global disasters, especially those that are not naturally caused.
















CHAPTER THREE

Media and Natural Disasters

Media coverage of natural disasters seems to vary a lot depending on the disaster. Is it selective? Why do some regions get more attention than others? Even when millions have died in a region from conflict and war, how is it that a disaster that claims less in lives — sometimes in the same area, as in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo — will bring in media interest and coverage? 2005 has recently seen a number of disasters and relief efforts, from the Asian tsunami, to the severe hurricanes and storms in the Caribbean, the earthquake in South Asia (Pakistan and India), and drought in parts of Africa. How has the media covered these?
While there are legitimate and practical constraints at times, when news outlets broadcast or print their “world news” segments, it seems the global stories selected are often based on local drivers rather than a drive for truly global coverage.
Below are just a few natural disasters that have occurred in the second half of 2005 which had a varying degree of coverage:
3.01 Table of contents for this page
This web page has the following sub-sections:
Pakistan and Indian Earthquake
Food shortages in West and Southern Africa
Typhoons in East Asia
Devastating Hurricanes affecting Central America and the US
3.02 Pakistan and Indian Earthquake
October 2005 saw a devastating earthquake in Pakistan, centered around the Kashmir region, which also impacted bordering regions in India.
The BBC reports that, Pakistan says 38,000 people died in the quake, 60,000 were injured and 3.3 million are homeless. At least another 1,400 more people died in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan says the quake will cost it $5 billion in infrastructure losses.
The area that has been devastated has been huge. In addition, the rough, mountainous quake area has made relief operations extremely difficult. Bad weather such as heavy rains and winds have also hampering relief operation. As a result, the total number of deaths is feared to double as an equal number of people die from cold and hunger in the aftermath as winter approaches. While a number of countries have donated to the relief operations, the amounts being raised for urgent aid dwarfs the amounts that will be needed in rebuilding.
Pakistan’s military-led relief operations, not without its problems and criticisms, have been praised by some media. By comparison, the less-reported Indian relief operations have, according to the BBC, been poor. However, Pakistan’s resources are limited, and despite repeated calls from authorities and international organizations, such as the United Nations for more help, little appears to have come urgently.
As a number of media outlets have reported, Pakistan, the UN and various organizations such as the Red Cross have said that only a fraction of the money pledged has been received and is an “unusually slow response”. More generally the international response has been described as wholly inadequate.
To be fair, thousands have not been reached because the region is very difficult to access. Yet, basics such as tents and blankets have also been in extremely short supply as the demand is great due to the sheer size of the disaster. (The British Channel 4 report linked to above in the previous paragraph also notes that of the 500,000 tents needed, only 36,000 have been delivered, but even with future tents pledged, there will be a shortfall of almost 200,000 tents.)
With such a devastating impact, intense media coverage is to be expected, no matter where in the world it is.
3.03 Food shortages in West and Southern Africa
Across Southern Africa, some 12 million are, or will be, affected by poor rains and failing crops. Malawi has already declared a national disaster as almost half the population is threatened by food shortages.
Some 5 million people will need food aid in West Africa (in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso) due to failing crops, locust infections, and poverty.
This did get a bit of media attention, but almost as if the world was caught off-guard, ironically when the world was watching the 2005 G8 Summit and Live 8 concerts, a key focus for which was poverty and other problems in Africa.
Almost not reported at all (typically), however, has been Western economic policies often pushed onto these African countries have made bad problems worse.
Devastating Structural Adjustment Programs for over two decades, for example, have meant many Africans cannot afford basic health or education. As the BBC did admit, Niger, for example, “has a policy, encouraged by the Western world, of privatized health care so that it costs $14 (£8) for a mother to get a baby a medical consultation. That means almost no-one in the country can afford to see a nurse or a doctor.”
Niger is rated by the United Nations as one of the most poorest countries in the world.
3.04 Typhoons in East Asia
At the end of September 2005, a typhoon in Vietnam left hundreds of thousands homeless and without sources of income.
A few days later, at the beginning of October, another typhoon in China resulted in hundreds of thousands being evacuated from some areas.
(See Relief Web’s Asia Natural Disasters archive section for a list of many other such events.)
3.05 Devastating Hurricanes affecting Central America and the US
Hurricane Stan’s immense devastation in Central America just a few weeks earlier than the Pakistan earthquake was less reported (though the number of lives lost were considerably less as well – not to minimize the importance of each life)
The BBC reported, on line, that almost 800 were killed, and the number could rise by another 2,000 in Guatemala alone.
1 million people were affected by floods, mudslides, and damaged or destroyed bridges. 300,000 alone were in the Chiapas region of Mexico.
This was made worse by a strong earthquake in El Salvador measuring 5.8 on the Richter Scale, which followed a volcano eruption 40 miles south of El Salvador's capital of San Salvador.
The devastation from hurricanes Katrina and Rita were well covered (and the previous link refers to this site’s own coverage of that).
Hurricane Wilma, just a few weeks later, has battered Mexico again (this time hitting popular tourist destinations for Westerners). It is feared, at the time of writing, that it will make its way up towards Florida and up the east coast of the US.
Wilma adds to one of the stormiest years for the Caribbean region, fueling more discussion about climate change.




CHAPTER THREE

DISASTERS AND TELEVISION

One of television's most basic applications lies in its ability to portray the devastation of a disaster, whether nearby or far away, both as it occurs and in its aftermath. Natural and manmade disasters are ideal subjects and settings for television which continually seeks the dramatic, emotionally-charged, even the catastrophic to capture audience attention. In the process the medium sometimes serves a vital function, informing and instructing viewers in matters pertaining to safety and recovery.
Two main categories of disaster are routinely handled on television. The first, natural disasters, includes earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, blizzards and drought. Technological disasters, the second category, includes plane crashes, nuclear reactor failures, oil or chemical spills, and similar emergencies. Not included in these definitions are human conflicts/disasters such as riots and political coups, though the chaos and drama inherent in them is equally as intriguing to television. Indeed, at times, such events lead to a form of disaster coverage, as in the case of massive problems of disease and famine caused by the Rwandan civil wars. Generally, however, disasters of nature and technology encompass a wide range of catastrophes which have in common a certain unpredictability and ambiguity of blame. In other words, while human conflicts such as wars and riots are predicated on easily-identifiable antagonism, it is more difficult to assign blame or identify human fault for natural and technological disasters. They occur oftentimes with little or no warning, at least by most human calculations, and leave behind considerable damage, both human and structural. When such events occur, the public and the media are challenged to cope, left to try to make sense of a disaster in terms of its cause and its meaning. They are also challenged to learn from one disaster how best to communicate the next.
During the actual moments of a disaster television plays multiple roles. It is purveyor of information, storyteller, and sometimes agent of change. It can impart news of impending disaster, convey the effects of events that have taken place or are unfolding, and assign meaning. All of this is possible by virtue of the medium's technology and its cultural authority.
Actual disasters have been the topic of numerous TV genres, including made for TV movies, public service announcements for relief organizations such as the Red Cross, and entertainment-oriented musical relief efforts such as Live Aid and Band Aid. Yet while the range of television genres employed in framing disasters has broadened, by far most attention to disasters is still found in the news.
It has been argued that people are psychologically drawn to disaster news because it feeds an innate voyeuristic tendency. Whether or not that is the case, natural and technological disasters are newsworthy because they are out of the ordinary events, they wreak havoc and, particularly important in television, they are the stuff of interesting dramatic video footage. The way a disaster is reported on television depends on the characteristics of the disaster itself, but it also depends on characteristics of television news practice and television technology.
Television news is often a useful means of relaying information about stages of disasters as they develop. Natural disasters, such as hurricanes and tornadoes can be reasonably predicted because of available sophisticated meteorological technology. Television may serve as a warning mechanism for residents of an area about to be hit by severe weather. However, even without the benefit of warning, television is capable of transmitting news of a disaster as it takes place and in its aftermath. Some natural events such as earthquakes are difficult to predict, and for technological disasters such as plane crashes and oil spills any form of prediction is virtually impossible. Resulting damage from these disasters, however, is completed within a relatively short amount of time. In the aftermaths of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California, the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake and the 1994 crash of the Delta Airlines shuttle outside Chicago, television news provided immediate, up-to-the-minute reports about the extent of damage and the clean-up and investigative efforts underway. The challenge for television news in such cases is to continuously provide information while trying to make sense of sudden chaos.
While earthquakes and plane crashes are relatively confined both in space and time, other disasters are more widespread and unfold over a much longer period. The Great Flood in the Midwest in 1993 developed throughout the summer and traveled south with the flowing rivers; the drought and famine in Somalia and Ethiopia were also widespread and were covered by television over a period of months or years. The challenge for television news in such ongoing disasters is to continually search for fresh angles from which to report, and new and interesting video to shoot. During the 1993 flood, network television news devoted evening news segments to its effects on farmers one evening, effects on small businesses another, and local and national relief efforts in yet another, all the while updating the audience on the progress of rising flood waters.
The role of television news in disasters is also spatially varied. In local settings or in the immediate area within which disaster has struck or is striking, television news is one of the primary means of disseminating information often vital to the physical and emotional health and safety of community residents. Television provides information about the risks they are under, where they can go for relief and who they should contact for specific needs. At times television becomes a conduit for personal messages. When severe weather conditions or the need for immediate access make television the only viable means of communication, individuals may use the medium to let others know they are safe or where they can be found.
In other situations distant disasters have a profound impact on one area. In such cases television is the fastest way to convey personal information to local residents. Shortly after the December 1988 crash of Pan Am flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, local television newscasters in Syracuse, New York quickly obtained passenger lists to read over the evening news because many of the passengers were students at Syracuse University and most of their friends and relatives were unsuccessful in confirming passenger information with Pan Am. One of the greatest challenges to the local newsroom during periods of disaster is to coordinate efforts with local safety and law officials so that accurate and necessary information is conveyed to the public in an efficient manner. Local television news staffs also find that they must abandon typical daily routines in favor of quick action and greater flexibility in fulfilling tasks.
National television news plays a different role in reporting disaster. A national newscast crosses boundaries and shares disaster stories with a nationwide audience, evoking empathy, community, solidarity and sometimes national action. Hurricane Andrew, which struck the southeastern United States in 1993, the 1993 Midwest Flood and the January 1994 Los Angeles earthquake all developed as national disasters by virtue of the network television coverage they received. Network news reported daily on the damaging effects of these disasters. Network news anchors traveled to and reported from the disaster sites, helping to convey, even create, a sense of national significance. The effect of this type of coverage was a national outpouring of sympathy and grass-roots relief efforts. Daily footage of damage and homelessness brought on by the storm, flood and earthquake prompted residents from distant parts of the country to coordinate food and clothing drives to help their recently-victimized neighbors.
National disaster coverage can also lead to political action. TV coverage, particularly the pictures of damage to wildlife and the ecosystem, from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound in March 1989 brought the nation's attention to a technological disaster and invoked the outrage of environmental groups such as Greenpeace. The action of environmentalists in their clean-up efforts and their battles with Exxon became significant angles in the development of that disaster news story.
But television also has the power to divert audiences from these more complex questions of politics and responsibility. In 17 January 1994, for example, immediately after the Los Angeles earthquake, all of the national network news stations sent news teams to Los Angeles. Each shot scene after scene of the most devastating effects of this seismic tragedy, from broken water mains to exploding gas lines to dismantled freeway systems, and finally to the horrified, panicked and awe-struck faces of the earthquake victims. Larger issues, however, went unexplored. Working under the time constraints of broadcast news and emphasizing the pictorial chaos of disaster, television cannot or does not develop other aspects of disaster, including the governmental, policy and sometimes historic problems or implications.
Yet another type of political implication may emerge from news reports of distant international disasters, especially when they involve U.S. coverage of disaster in Third World nations. Critics have charged the U.S. press with geographic bias in covering disasters from the developing nations. Their argument, supported with detailed content analysis of news stories broadcast in the United States, points out that much of the reporting from these nations focuses on disasters and political upheaval. This practice is seen to create a distorted image of these nations, as chaos-ridden and prone to disaster, representations that support and perpetuate unequal power relations among dominant and developing nations.














CHAPTER FIVE

Western interests


The level of response generated by a humanitarian disaster in the media in the developed world is determined by western self-interest, rather than the scale or nature of human suffering, says a new report.The Asian tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake received lower "share of voice" than Hurricane Katrina, which had a considerably lower death-toll, in the international media, global media analysts Carma International say in their report on western media coverage of humanitarian disasters. "There is a clear link between the volume of reportage and global economic impact of these events. While political subtext determines the timing, level of commitment and story angle, no connection exists between the scale of the disaster and media interest in the story," says Carma International Managing Director Tom Vessey. The report is based on a global analysis of the media coverage of two hurricanes Katrina (USA) and Stanley (Guatemala), the Asian tsunami, earthquakes in Bam (Iran) and Kashmir and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur (Sudan). The report analyses 64 daily and weekly publications in nine countries - the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Pan-Europe, the USA and Australia. The two earthquakes attracted just about 5 per cent media attention each, while the tsunami could only account for about 25 per cent of the coverage. Compare this with the whopping 50 per cent share of voice got by Hurricane Katrina, which the report concludes, was due to its economic and political dimensions (read oil). On the contrary, the relative lack of coverage of the Kashmir earthquake was linked to the lack of impact on the global economy, says the report. "An obvious corollary to the political and economic self-interest of western markets in disasters is an often tasteless ego-centric tendency in reporting or a manipulation of disasters for selfish ends," it says. This marked ego-centric bias in reporting is revealed by a simple statistic: the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed around 1,75,000 people and displaced 24,00,000 others. Only 900 deaths were of the countries whose publications were analysed. Yet, around 40 per cent of all coverage on people impacted by the disaster focussed on westerners. Chastising the western media for its limited perspective in covering such incidents, the report says the fourth estate can actually pro-actively determine political response to a crisis. "During the white-hot glow of humanitarian crises when publicity is cheap to come by, governments...Offer very optimistic sums of money for both aid and re-construction. Once the world moves on, it is very difficult to sustain pressure and these sums don't always materialise." "By co-ordinating with the media...NGOs can keep a high political pressure on governments to fulfill their commitments and provide a story with both a political and economically relevant angle to publishers and readers," it suggests. The tsunami coverage reinforced notions of international media being western-focused and driven by economics. While affected persons were identified primarily as tourists, rather than the thousands of other locals, reports also cast doubts on the supposedly altruistic humanitarian concerns towards local communities.
















CHAPTER SIX

Differences in media coverage


Media coverage of disasters in 2005, would divert donor money and media attention away from the world’s “and before, have varied considerably, with some disasters getting almost no coverage and others receiving a lot. The media is criticized for this by humanitarian organizations as well because of this, and yet these organizations also need the media to try and get their message out. The Red Cross noted a number of these issues in its World Disasters Report 2005:
Media coverage of the 26 December tsunami dominated headlines worldwide well into January – much longer than any other disaster in modern history. After the tsunami came a metaphorical tidal wave of donations. Aid workers worried that the tsunami hidden disasters.”
Many aid agencies regard media coverage of the world’s crises as selective and stereotyped. But they still crave publicity, hoping it will generate more funding and attention for disaster relief.
— Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report 2005, Chapter 6, International Red Cross
While some smaller media outlets would no doubt be stretched trying to provide a lot of coverage for many simultaneous natural disasters, those listed above were not entirely simultaneous, and yet, the coverage of some of these disasters were less than others. For some of the global mass media outlets, it would not be hard to cover these pressing issues for so many people, especially as they clearly have sufficient resources.
There are a number of complex reasons, including ones we are accustomed to hearing, which the Red Cross also summarizes here:
News judgment reflects established criteria. News must be new. Editors sort stories by death tolls. Disasters that are unusual yet explicable, and that cause considerable death or destruction in accessible places which the audience is believed to care about, get covered. Baffling stories get less attention.
The commercial imperative has sharpened journalists’ quest for ratings. Today, TV news is part news and part entertainment. So it’s understandable that sudden, dramatic disasters like volcanoes or tsunamis are intensely newsworthy, whereas long-drawn-out crises (difficult to describe, let alone film) are not.
— Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report 2005, Chapter 6, International Red Cross
“Places which the audience is believed to care about” is an interesting point. Local interests therefore drive “global” news reporting for a number of reasons such as:
The impact to Western interests
· Where western foreigners typically travel (e.g, the tsunami-hit areas, the Caribbean, Southern coasts of America, etc) there would no doubt be more coverage
· Pakistan also happens to be of strategic interest to countries such as the US in their war on terrorism, hence there was a bit more coverage on the Bush administration’s response to the disaster.
· The Red Cross, in the same chapter mentioned above, does acknowledge a study showing an increase in media coverage of aid operations. “Despite NGOs’ concerns, a major 2004 study by Professor Steve Ross of Columbia University found evidence that media coverage of aid operations is increasing. The number of articles in English-speaking publications worldwide mentioning AIDS in Africa jumped from 3,607 in 1998 to 19,375 in 2003.” However, one reason for the increase in AIDS coverage in recent years has been because it has also become a threat to the West and because in 2000 the US said AIDS was a threat to National Security. While it was a problem ravaging Africa only, it had less attention. (See this site’s AIDS in Africa section for more details on that aspect.)

4.01 The impact to a country’s own interest
· Obviously media coverage from organizations in one’s own country will concentrate far more on disasters closer to home. Hence Central American media outlets reported more on the effects of hurricane Stan than say CNN or BBC did. Likewise, as a radio commentator in England noted (I can’t recall exact details of when and which broadcast, unfortunately), Britain provided more coverage of mudslides etc in a rural area of Britain where a small number of people were impacted, compared to coverage of disasters in Africa and Central America. On the one hand, that is to be expected, but on the other hand, and especially for the big, global mainstream media outlets that advertise their global outreach and trustworthiness, this does raise the question of how we relate to the rest of humanity; who is worthy of news and who isn’t; what “global” news really means, etc.
· In the case of the Pakistan earthquake, Britain has many people from the South Asia region, including millions from Pakistan. Naturally then, coverage of the Pakistan earthquake is an important issue for British media to cover (though the British media apparently had to receive pressure from the ethnic Pakistani communities to provide more coverage, initially).
· In the case of Hurricane Wilma, thousands of British and American tourists have been caught up in the destruction in Mexico’s affect tourist areas.
4.02 The dramatic nature of some recent natural disasters
The Asian tsunami, the Pakistan earthquake, the effects of Katrina on the world’s most powerful country, are all issues that take people by surprise, and from a media angle, provide most sensational and riveting coverage.
By contrast, the famines in Africa hardly appeared to get coverage, perhaps because it appears to be an issue that keeps happening, and maybe the media feel that people are now desensitized to it, and they won’t get enough of an audience for their advertisers. Maybe the above criticism seems a bit harsh, but many feel this way.
Long drawn out conflicts have also received less attention even when the death toll dwarfs most others, as the Red Cross noted:
[In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it was estimated that] 3.8 million people had died since 1998 from war, disease and malnutrition. Even so, coverage of the crisis remained patchy: “one of the worst sins of omission in media history”, admits the BBC’s Fergal Keane.... Ironically, the dramatic eruption of DRC’s Nyiragongo volcano in January 2002 prompted a huge influx of journalists, but killed fewer than 100 people.
— Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report 2005, Chapter 6, International Red Cross
It is sometimes claimed that there is “donor fatigue” when it comes to dealing with so many disasters at a time. If that is true, then it would seem the media has a similar “media fatigue. ”That partially explains the existence of Relief Web, mentioned above, which was created by the United Nations in 1996. It also recognizes that a number of emergencies get ignored by the wider world:
An independent vehicle of information, designed specifically to assist the international humanitarian community in effective delivery of emergency assistance, [Relief Web] provides timely, reliable and relevant information as events unfold, while emphasizing the coverage of “forgotten emergencies” at the same time.
— About Relief Web
Unintended Consequences
The Red Cross also notes that too much media coverage concentrating on just some disasters can lead to fueling both public funding and the demand for instant action on those issues in such a way that they have unintended consequences such as
High-profile aid interventions that aren’t based on sound needs assessments;
The prospect of raising too much money
“Forgotten” emergencies
For the Asian tsunami relief effort some organizations had to close their appeals very quickly thanks to the large influx on donations, while others admitted that they received so much money that they would have trouble spending it all responsibly.
Examples given on these “forgotten” emergencies included:
Mention of an analysis of 200 English-language newspapers worldwide that showed the Asian tsunami generated more column inches in 6 weeks than the world’s top 10 “forgotten” emergencies combined over the previous year.
A comparison whereby the Asian tsunami “media blitz prompted unprecedented generosity. By February 2005, the international community had donated US$ 500 per person affected by the tsunami, compared to just 50 cents for each person affected by Uganda’s 18-year war.”
4.03 Follow-ups on natural disaster recovery
During the immediate aftermath of the Asian tsunami, much was reported on the aid and generosity from around the world. Many countries offered large sums of money for aid. Yet, almost a year on, there has hardly been anything in the mainstream news broadcasts on the amount actually delivered, rather than initially pledged, or how it has been used.
Issues such as the quality of the aid, or the conditions associated with the aid, or what countries may sacrifice when receiving such aid is hardly mentioned, certainly not as prime time news headlines.
To be fair, while they may not make headline news, they may still get covered, though in less prime time situations, as the Red Cross also notes:
“Forgotten” disasters are often chronic and diffuse, changing little day by day. Unlikely to qualify as news, such crises may feature as current affairs stories – especially on the websites of news organizations.
— Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report 2005, Chapter 6, International Red Cross
As the Red Cross added, “principles of aid demand that disaster response should build on local capacities” and yet they reported examples of where this did not happen (e.g. Sri Lanka receiving air-freighted bottled water). Why is building on local capacities important? It encourages and supports the local economy, especially at a time of disaster. Furthermore, local supplies are cheaper, and do not involve additional costs such as transportation. (This is a general issue of aid, even in non-emergency situations, whereby much aid effectiveness is reduced by tying it to purchases from the donor. A lot of aid money never leaves a donor country, and, in effect, helps boost sales of donor country’s companies. See this site’s section on foreign aid for more details.)
But just a few headlines on the aid delivery would not only allow the public to see how their governments have responded to their outpouring of generosity, but also allow the public to keep up the pressure, and, without a lot of public having to dig around to find this information.
It was only in describing the aid needed for Pakistan’s relief efforts in a Channel 4 broadcast on October 20, 2005, that I came across some more information on the Asian tsunami aid: 83% of the target $1.2 billion was actually received. (It was also noted that only 14% of the $312 million target for Pakistan has been received so far, though that is likely to increase, no doubt.)
4.04 Limited type of coverage – context or deeper issues often missing
And, while there has been a lot of coverage of some of these disasters in the immediate aftermath and the subsequent relief effort, it is often limited around the factual issues (which is important and should not be reduced), with very little deeper context.
There are signs that things are changing. “Issues generate stories” the Red Cross adds. “The recent heat waves and hurricanes in the developed world have galvanized media interest in global warming and ‘natural’ disasters. The scares and culprits associated with climate change are the stuff of headlines.”
The media did also report on the failings and successes of the humanitarian agencies and their response in the wake of such monumental catastrophes, the unprecedented large donations that could result, and the often incredibly large number of organizations that would be very, very difficult to coordinate efficiently. The Red Cross report mentioned a number of times in this article was, for example, itself mentioned by some mainstream media outlets.
The apparent increase in mainstream reporting on such issues may, however, also be a bit over-simplistic and the non-governmental organizations themselves often do not know how to make best use of modern media:
According to Professor [Steve] Ross [of Columbia University], “By a four-to-one margin, journalists say criticism and skepticism in the press about relief organizations has increased.” However, argues disaster expert John Twigg, journalists should avoid easy answers: “Media treatment of disasters is stereotyped. Relief is either heroic or failed – there is nothing in between.”
...
Ross criticizes journalists for a lack of specialist knowledge about humanitarian issues and sources, tight budgets, impatience and crisis fatigue. But he also criticizes NGOs for inadequate media training, not sharing information publicly, confusing marketing with press relations, and not exploiting Internet-based tools.
— Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report 2005, Chapter 6, International Red Cross
Is there a sign of any positive change? The Red Cross is hopeful:
Some media trends actually favor humanitarians: the growing prominence of climate change, technical advances in video news gathering, the rise of Africa as a geopolitical issue, posited links between poverty and terrorism, growth of peer-to-peer media and the approach of the 2015 millennium development goals. The Internet and 24-hour news have vastly increased the market for humanitarian testimony.
— Humanitarian media coverage in the digital age, World Disasters Report 2005, Chapter 6, International Red Cross
But the media are less likely, of course, to report on themselves, certainly not in any headlines.
In addition, discussion of more complex issues such as the causes of poverty are harder to come by it seems. Occasionally, there is mention of poverty making a disaster’s impact greater than it could, but there is very little on why there is poverty.
Poverty and the crippling effects of third world debt are certainly issues that need more coverage by the mainstream. They are not issues only when the G8 meet, but they are unfortunately ever-present. (So when the media appears to be reporting on poverty at the time of a G8 summit, are they really being driven by the agenda of the politicians rather than the issue of poverty?)
Given that some 30,000 children die on average each year from the effects of debt and poverty, one would surely expect more coverage of such a global issue than is currently given, and one would hope it is not just a fashionable news item when rich country leaders come together for a meeting.













CHAPTER SEVEN

Conclusion

What is the direction of the media? This begs the question, is it the media’s responsibility to provide more analytics and context, or just keep it factual? If so is it the politicians that the media report and interview on to attempt an explanation (which risks becoming propaganda)? The G8 Summit debt relief proposals was certainly had positive spin put to it which the media did not report much on, thus giving the impression to the population that a lot was achieved.
What does it take to become a headline? A disaster by itself doesn’t seem to. If a government makes a big deal out of a disaster somewhere in the world, we are sure to hear about it in the media. If they don’t then often we will not, unless a few journalists on their own work to get the stories out, as happened with Niger and the imminent famines (ironically at the same time the G8 leaders were meeting to discuss issues such as Africa), or unless it a major dramatic catastrophe such as an earthquake, tsunami, volcano eruption, plane crash, etc. On-going wars where millions may have died may get hardly any coverage at all, as mentioned further above.
Many of the links I have used above do come from mainstream sources, yet those are not the major headlines on prime time television broadcasts or newspapers. Sometimes they do form part of the major headlines but are only covered with a few sentences or maybe mentioned for a couple of days or so.
Natural disaster coverage would seem to be one of the more “safer” political topics to cover. There is less ideology and political language/propaganda to have to wade through (though that often does exist even for natural disasters). And yet, even if media coverage of natural disasters appears to be selective, this should begin questioning our assumptions of what world news from a media outlet really is: is it coverage of events occurring around the world, or is it selective coverage of events occurring around the world, presented in a framework that meets other, local needs, interests, and demands?
In the wake of the terrible Asian tsunami at towards the end of 2004 and its aftermath into 2005, with the immense media coverage, there was hope that perhaps finally the Western mainstream media were making a turn and beginning to cover truly global events and provide real world news. Cynics at the time claimed the western media and their governments were only interested in the region because of all the western tourist areas that were affected and that the impressive wider coverage was for such reasons. At the time, it felt that this time those cynics were wrong. One year on, it is hard to claim that the cynics were wrong.
The mainstream may have taken a step forward to report more about the rest of humanity in the time of natural disasters, but it still seems there is a long way to go in improving quality of coverage of natural disasters, deeper context, and more generally, of near-constant, less “dramatic” global issues such as poverty.