Moralistic post

[omnimowse]

I think it was some time after the Asian tsunami, and when I realised that I was no longer too hard up for cash, that I made a decision. What I decided was that any time I saw a news report describing some disaster that killed or caused injury and distress to 1000s, but didn't actually affect me at all - like the Burma cyclone in the news at the

Comments

[kehoea]

Interesting, related thing here: http://www.metafilter.com/71724/Does-Africa-Need-Wealthy-White-Celebs-to-help-her-Survive-and-Prosper#2116541

Turns out that the media circus correlates quite well with the level of donations given, so it probably has a net positive effect.

[omnimowse]

I can well imagine it.

I'm not against blanket coverage in itself. I'm just a bit miffed by the idea of people who are interested in humanitarian crises giving money to media corporations who report on the disasters (by buying their newspapers, or whatever), but not giving anything to the victims themselves.