Are our bleeding hearts drying up?
It seems 2011 is the year for the natural disaster, if I held any belief that the world was going to end at 2012 I'd have a pretty good case to climb atop of my soapbox right now and start preaching. Floods, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis... good ol mother nature seems to have it out for us at the moment and the media is in a bonanza of shock and sympathy coverage that has us glued to our seat in fear we may miss out on something. Disaster is not without profit, and exploiting humanities inquisitive and sympathetic nature is on top agenda for the world news.
It came as a shock to me to see that only one station (a subsidiary station at that) covered potentially the worst disaster this year has seen to date. I mean no discredit to the disaster that swept Christchurch, NZ; but as the devastation of the earthquake in NZ unfolded, every station on Australian television quickly established themselves as the leaders in reporting and fund raising for appeal and relief. The Australian government committed troops and rescue teams within hours and like the Queensland floods, Australia opened their hearts and wallets to help.
This leads the question, that now... many hours after the impact of the earthquake and the devastating tsunami that followed, where is the comprehensive coverage? where is the commitments? where is the deep pockets of the sorrowed heart? Now if you want to know anything about the disaster in Japan, you have to flick over to ABC3 to get content-less, uncommitted repeat footage with over exaggeratedly bias media spin to keep you watching as they cross back and forward to unrelated threat locations under the highly unlikely pretense that the viewer may witness another disaster strike! Chile had a 6.8 earthquake only last month and the world carried on as business as usual, I hadn't even HEARD of it happening until reading up on it today.
The multi-million donation dollar question is: Are we rapidly desensitizing to disaster or merely over glorifying other coverage because it's in our own backyard? Are our sympathetic bleeding hearts only a shallow flag for an inherently selfish disposition to care only when it could potentially effect or relate to us? 400+ people are reported dead, Japan has openly identified as being ready to accept aid.... where are the superpowers commitment and support? Where is the comprehensive media coverage bringing education so the private entities who (are after a tax break) can afford to donate to an appeal can do so?
...
When George Takei and Alyssa Milano are strumming up more relief appeal on their twitters than the Australian news... there is something seriously wrong in this world.
It came as a shock to me to see that only one station (a subsidiary station at that) covered potentially the worst disaster this year has seen to date. I mean no discredit to the disaster that swept Christchurch, NZ; but as the devastation of the earthquake in NZ unfolded, every station on Australian television quickly established themselves as the leaders in reporting and fund raising for appeal and relief. The Australian government committed troops and rescue teams within hours and like the Queensland floods, Australia opened their hearts and wallets to help.
This leads the question, that now... many hours after the impact of the earthquake and the devastating tsunami that followed, where is the comprehensive coverage? where is the commitments? where is the deep pockets of the sorrowed heart? Now if you want to know anything about the disaster in Japan, you have to flick over to ABC3 to get content-less, uncommitted repeat footage with over exaggeratedly bias media spin to keep you watching as they cross back and forward to unrelated threat locations under the highly unlikely pretense that the viewer may witness another disaster strike! Chile had a 6.8 earthquake only last month and the world carried on as business as usual, I hadn't even HEARD of it happening until reading up on it today.
The multi-million donation dollar question is: Are we rapidly desensitizing to disaster or merely over glorifying other coverage because it's in our own backyard? Are our sympathetic bleeding hearts only a shallow flag for an inherently selfish disposition to care only when it could potentially effect or relate to us? 400+ people are reported dead, Japan has openly identified as being ready to accept aid.... where are the superpowers commitment and support? Where is the comprehensive media coverage bringing education so the private entities who (are after a tax break) can afford to donate to an appeal can do so?
...
When George Takei and Alyssa Milano are strumming up more relief appeal on their twitters than the Australian news... there is something seriously wrong in this world.