60 Minutes' under fire for Africa coverage
"In a series of recent segments from the continent, 60 Minutes has managed, quite extraordinarily, to render people of black African ancestry voiceless and all but invisible," French, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, wrote in the letter, which was signed by college professors and writers from across America.
French's primary example was Lara Logan's reporting on the Ebola crisis. "In that broadcast, Africans were reduced to the role of silent victims," he wrote. "They constituted what might be called a scenery of misery: people whose thoughts, experiences and actions were treated as if totally without interest. Liberians were shown within easy speaking range of Logan, including some Liberians whom she spoke about, and yet not a single Liberian was quoted in any capacity."
Most of the media at the time of trying to scare everyone on the planet shitless did the same thing.
The media in general tried to paint everyone coming out of Africa as a potential Ebola bomb.
There was so much burning hair it was hard to make any sense out of the reporting in general.
At least a few had their geography improved by finding out that Africa is a big place.
Let's face it when it is not one of our own citizens the victims tend to remain voiceless in "our" media. They often serve as a background. There is some good reporting in amongst the "cheveux flambee" but you have to dig for it.
God help most of our reporters if they were subjected to the same analysis as those of 60 minutes, then again, the average quality might improve. Yah, optimistic I know, but one must hope.
The full letter can be found here
Taken together, this anachronistic style of coverage reproduces, in condensed form, many of the worst habits of modern American journalism on the subject of Africa. To be clear, this means that Africa only warrants the public’s attention when there is disaster or human tragedy on an immense scale, when Westerners can be elevated to the role of central characters, or when it is a matter of that perennial favorite, wildlife. As a corollary, Africans themselves are typically limited to the role of passive victims, or occasionally brutal or corrupt villains and incompetents; they are not otherwise shown to have any agency or even the normal range of human thoughts and emotions. Such a skewed perspective not only disserves Africa, it also badly disserves the news viewing and news reading public.
true, not just Ebola and not just US media