Mass atrocities are being covered superficially, selectively, or barely at all in mainstream news – especially outside short spikes of attention. But how could I forget? Those are the less important ones, of course. No one should care about Sudan, or Myanmar, or DRC, or- why should we, when it doesn’t concern us? Sure, they’re some of the largest humanitarian catastrophes of the 21st century – but it’s better to frame it as just some routine conflict rather than the ongoing attempt to destroy a people. Tragedies, yes – but unhelpful ones.
Why should we care after all? Not to point fingers at anyone, but some people are a little too quick to use that word – “genocide”. Those, and if you can even call them that, ‘journalists’ are horribly unreliable. We don’t know that those locals are telling the truth when our Western-educated ones have been barred off. It’s a bit too much of a stretch to call something an “extermination campaign”, don’t you think? “Deliberate starvation tactics” and “Weaponised sexual violence” seem to be a little exaggerated – besides, the global South isn’t really that newsworthy. Too backwards, too uncivilised, too barbaric – it’s just not that marketable when it comes to The New York Times or the BBC. We’re not monsters, we just have priorities! We’re devastated. Briefly. And professionally. It’s not like we’re saying that we don’t cover the important stuff – obviously we do! But who cares about that – that word – when we already cover so much?
Fine, if we have to say something, we’ll just blame it on their own corruption. A good sob story, some kind of distraction, I think…something like – “We interviewed a very very poor mother of seven…clashes erupted…and after careful consideration we think that violence is occuring…the UN has expressed great concern, oh they’re very concerned…suffering is now up year on year which analysts described as ‘not ideal’…it’s that black and white!”
Slap it onto a half-page and give it 24 hours of headlines, and we can leave it behind for good. Perfect! If we run this story once, what more could they possibly want?
