Out Of Africa: Where T.V. News Falls Short
If there are eight million stories in the naked city alone, think of the billions around the globe, and the thousands of stories with real impact on the world. A great many of these stories get scant coverage or are overlooked entirely, by the mainstream media. But one area in particular seems to come up over and over again when this topic arises – Africa.
Famine in Niger, the war in Sudan and the ongoing AIDS crisis in Africa are a few of the topics that aren’t often addressed on television news in particular. When they answered questions for us, both Michael Bass, senior executive producer of “The Early Show,” and Randall Joyce, a CBS News producer based in London, brought up Africa when asked what isn’t being covered enough at CBS News.
There are others within the network who agree. David Gelber, a producer at “60 Minutes,” says that while programs like “60 Minutes” and ABC News’ “Nightline” continue to do stories on the AIDS crisis and other conflicts in Africa, “In general, in network news, the fact that 30-40 million people have AIDS or are HIV positive in Africa is not on the radar screen. If they were Europeans that were dying, it would be a different matter.”
Famine in Niger, the war in Sudan and the ongoing AIDS crisis in Africa are a few of the topics that aren’t often addressed on television news in particular. When they answered questions for us, both Michael Bass, senior executive producer of “The Early Show,” and Randall Joyce, a CBS News producer based in London, brought up Africa when asked what isn’t being covered enough at CBS News.
There are others within the network who agree. David Gelber, a producer at “60 Minutes,” says that while programs like “60 Minutes” and ABC News’ “Nightline” continue to do stories on the AIDS crisis and other conflicts in Africa, “In general, in network news, the fact that 30-40 million people have AIDS or are HIV positive in Africa is not on the radar screen. If they were Europeans that were dying, it would be a different matter.”
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