Interesting project by the the American Progress Action Fund and the Genocide Intervention Fund to raise awareness about the genocide in Darfur: use Journalism-School science for an activist campaign called Be A Witness. Using quantitative content analyses of the major U.S. television networks, they compared news coverage of the genocide in Darfur with other, popular but, uhm, pointless news stories, like the Jackson trial and Tom Cruise’s opinions about stuff.

A quantitative monitoring of all news segments aired in the month of June 2005 on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC shows that coverage of the genocide in Sudan was overwhelmed by stories of far less consequence including the “runaway bride,” the Michael Jackson trial, and Tom Cruise’s new movie and relationship with actress Katie Holmes.* During a month when new fighting and aerial attacks erupted in Sudan, Americans learned almost nothing about these developments from major television news media.
Overview of Research and Methodology

Not sure how they are going to deal with yesterday’s news from Sudan. The gist of the news coverage of Rice’s visit seems to have been: “OHMYGOD! Rice’s staff and western journalists get roughed up in Sudan! ………. Oh, yeah – uh – and there’s, like, genocide and stuff going on in Sudan.”
Here is how I personally hold these turkeys accountable: I don’t watch the stupid networks. Haven’t had television access at my house for ten years.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2005 at 9:32 am and is filed under Palmwine, Take Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.