Pakistan Ain't White.. but neither was New Orleans

Belinda made a good point over dinner tonight - 48 hours after Katrina hit New Orleans our mainstream media was SWAMPED with reports on it. Death toll from Katrina - ~1000.

48 hours after the recent earthquake his Pakistan we're seeing it covered in the news, but there is perhaps one-tenth the coverage of New Orleans. Death toll - ~40,000.

A Google News search on "pakistan earthquake" delivers 10,800 results.

A Google News search on "new orleans katrina" delivers 118.000 results.  

It's not just MSM either.

A Google BlogSearch on "pakistan earthquake" delivers 8,656 results.  

A Google BlogSearch on "new orleans katrina" delivers 340,302 results.  

Why the disparity? Is it because the Pakistanis aren't white? Maybe, but neither were the majority of the victims of Katrina. Is it because they aren't in the West? They don't speak our language?  

If I'm honest with myself, I know that I feel more for the destruction in New Orleans that I do for Islamabad, possibly because I've spent a lot of time in New Orleans. I'm questioning my attitudes though.

Comments

[phil]

Yeah me too Cam. I feel ashamed of it actually. It is like there is a deep down racist tendency that I have yet to grapple with. Scary!

[Rob Irwin]

I think it's two things, Cam, and neither are anything to get bent out of shape about.

(i) Internet access to the general population. Much higher in the US and other Western countries. It's natural that there will be more hits relating to Katrina. Every man and his dog blogged about it, for starters.

(ii) You mention language in an angry kind of way, but it's actually true. Your Google searches are only turning up hits in English, right? I think you'd find a lot more coverage to add to that total if you were working in the native language.

[Tony]

I agree with Rob and was about to say the same thing, though not as well.

If you did a search in a language more common to the region you may find something else in your stats. I also think a lack of "journalists" whether mainstream or not is all lacking because of where it happened and the difficulty in getting access to the region.

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob, are you suggesting that the rest of the world's media (old and new) shouldn't be covering it with an equal or greater coverage as they did Katrina? That the Aussie press should give more news coverage to US news than Pakistani news?

[Tony]

I don't think Rob is saying anything of the sort. I personally was sick of hearing about Katrina 24/7 even tho it was a tragedy we don't need to be told that all the time.

I will let Rob speak for himself though, he does it so well.

[Phillip Molly Malone]

Okay two tests that are probably relevant:
1) How many English speaking bloggers are there in Pakistan compared to the US?
2) How many different English speaking TV journalists are there in Pakistan compared to the US?
3) (okay I thought of another) How many 24 x 7 English news services are there in Pakistan?

I would have thought we (Australians) would have tremendous feeling for the plight of the Pakkies as we have strong ties to them in the sport of Cricket!

JMTC
Molly

[Rob Irwin]

Cam, no, not saying that at all. What I'm saying is, perhaps, it's a bit simplistic to count Google hits and conclude that it's representative of mainstream media coverage.

As I mentioned, there are plenty of other factors, such as blogs and general Internet access which are always going to skew the results towards the West. And if bloggers are to blame, partially, for the disparity, why not mention them too?

Even looking at your own site, I seem to recall several Katrina posts, but haven't seen the same mentions of Pakistan...???

Also, although it plays slightly into your argument, why shouldn't the Western media have covered Katrina a little more, anyway, considering it actually happened in the US and, in turn, a great deal of newsfeed comes from there? The newspapers and TV networks are going to have less feed and reporters on the ground in Pakistan than they will in the US - that's simple fact. Also, to not put too fine a point on it, events which affect a superpower are always going to get decent coverage. Again, it's just the way it is.

Having said that, the mainstream media has gone heavy on Pakistan as far as I can see - are you watching the cable coverage? It's certainly getting a good run.

[Cameron Reilly]

Rob, no I don't have cable. And as for my blog, I actually refrained from talking about New Orleans until Kanye did his thing. I didn't feel like I had much to add.

I'm mainly talking about why we (and I do mean bloggers as well as MSM) seem to give a tragedy that costs the lives of 40,000 people a lot less coverage than a tragedy that costs the lives of 1,000. Most of the media, old and new, that covered New Orleans didn't weren't locals, so what's the difference if it's in the US or Pakistan?

I think it goes a lot deeper than that. I think we are inherently racist in that we care more about people who look and talk like us than we do about people who live in a country with a different religion and a different culture. We don't identify with them as strongly, so we care about them less. And the media is representative of who we are (sadly).

[Rob Irwin]

To be honest, I think it comes back to my superpower comment in the previous post. I think there's a greater interest in disasters or events which happen in a superpower, than in a smaller country.

Let's remove the death and disaster and all that emotional stuff for a moment.

What happened when there were elections in the US? We got a fair whack of coverage not because people in the US look like us and talk like us, but because the leader of the US has a genuine effect on the rest of the world. Meanwhile, if there was an election in Pakistan, we'd hear about it - but because the end result isn't as relevant to the rest of us, the coverage wouldn't be the same.

You can take just about any kind of news story and hold it up to this litmus test and, in the end, I think it will come back to America's position in the world, and it's control/influence on things, which is why we are more focussed on what happens there, than elsewhere. Does it make it right? Perhaps not, but it's understandable, at least. I think the answer lies more in this direction than the news networks being "inherently racist". After all, isn't most of the MSM rather left-wing? You don't find a lot of left-wingers getting around being "inherently racist" after all.

[Cameron Reilly]

hell no, I don't think most MSM are left wing. Are you kidding me? The JOURNOs might be lefties, but they work for bosses who aren't. And their business depends on advertising which means they are creating content which appeals to certain demographics who will buy shit.

As for the US superpower theory, I don't agree with that either. China and India are pretty much superpowers in their own right. Their economies will be larger than the US economy in the next decade. But again, they don't look like us, so we don't have them on our TV.

Understand, I'm not saying that its the media's fault, I'm just questioning my own appetite for news about a place I know and people I can identify with, as opposed to people and places I don't know. The scope of the "human tragedy" is almost irrelevant. It's worth remembering the next time there is a tragedy in either the US or the UK (or here) and people in the media start waxing eloquently about "oh the humanity". What we really mean is "wow they look like us, that could have been me".

[Tony]

This is a tough one. Most of the MSM we see in this country originates from the USA unfortunately unless it's in our country which therefore is different. I haven't been watching the news channels much on Cable, but Rob correct me if I am wrong, most of the coverage would be from BBC news and not the major US News channels wouldn't it?

I would also think that 90% of bloggers in the world are likely from the USA or are American and thus focus on items that interest themselves. I also believe a lack of network availability in the region of the earthquake are major factors also why the blogging world isn't covering it and also a lot of news isn't coming out of the region except for the major news networks who have the ability to broadcast via satellite.

I don't think it is a race or religion issue but a case of logistics and remoteness of where it occured. If the Earthquake had hit somewhere that had high internet usage and blogging community then it would be covered like Katrina was. The katrina thing was unique in the fact that even though you weren't a local you still access to the people from the area and tons of people to talk to and take photos and stuff of which to blog about.

I also think the when we do here good news out of Pakistan about survivors like the 5 they found the other day, we are a lot happier and excited about the news because we haven't been barraged with information overflow like we were with Katrina. Even in tragedy too much information will eventually lead to people tuning out as they just get tired of hearing about the same thing over and over.

I don't watch a lot of news but I do subscribe to a few newsfeeds which I read when I get home and follow them up if I am interested. Maybe that's why my opinion is a little different than yours in that I am not watching a lot of happening as opposed to reading about it, I don't know. I think there was also a severe lack of the destruction during the mudslides and loss of life in Guatemala last week as well but that barely raised a mention either in the press that I saw.

Basically MSM we get is US centric and thus anything that happens there gets more coverage than anything else. If you had cable and watched any of their news or sports shows you would almost believe that US is it's own world and the rest of live somewhere else in the universe.

Damn I wish I was eloquent as Cam and Rob in posts and didn't waffle on.

[Rob Irwin]

Cam, the Indian equation bothers me to some degree - but I think it's pretty obvious why we don't have mad coverage of what's happening in China. I mean, think about it ;-)

Tony, there's some British news on cable, but the vast majority is US networks.

[Tony]

Rob,

I know there are British news channels on cable as I sometimes watch them. I think the point I was trying to make is your more likely to see better coverage of Pakistan on the British networks than you would on the US channels.

[Rob Irwin]

I would agree with that, Tony. The US has, let's not dance around the subject, a very strange view of the world. The BBC, and even the British editions of Sky News, have a much better global view.