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2 Blasts, Different Coverage

richard

Saturation for London; Less for Higher Toll in Egypt

“Three car bombs exploded in quick succession in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik early Saturday, ripping through a hotel and a cafe packed with European and Egyptian tourists. The province governor said at least 49 people died in the deadliest attack in Egypt in nearly a decade,” Lee Keath reported Saturday for the Associated Press.

Two weeks earlier, as everyone knows, “Bomb explosions tore through three subway trains and a red-painted double-decker bus in a coordinated terror attack during London’s morning rush hour . . . killing at least 37 people, wounding about 700 and leaving the city stunned and bloodied but oddly stoic,” as a reporting team led by Alan Cowell wrote in the New York Times of July 8.

The death toll rose to at least 56 in London but to 88 in Egypt, and it was the London blast that commanded the most U.S. media attention, panelists noted today on National Public Radio’s “News and Notes” with Ed Gordon.

“A lot of the journalists feel a strong connection to London,” George E. Curry, editor of the National Newspaper Publisher Association News Service, said on the show.

Walter Fields, publisher of TheNorthstarNetwork.com, cited the disparate coverage as another example of how “we are at odds with the world” in our priorities and policies.

Mary Mitchell, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, likened the disparity to “what happens with news coverage in the U.S.” in coverage of the haves vs. the have-nots.

Journal-isms asked a number of editors for their thoughts. Two volunteered.

“We certainly gave Sharm a good run in Newsday, though for reasons of staff disposition we could not staff it in person,” said Roy Gutman, foreign editor at Newsday in New York.

“I was in Asia when the decisions were made so I cannot give you the last details on them. I do think that London and the perils of riding Underground is something that our readership with their travel patterns and their Subway experience can relate to a little more readily than Sharm, which is an exotic faraway beach resort. So we sent over our subways columnist to London, as well as an added reporter (we have a man in London, who was ill and unable to work for more than a day). In short, I don’t think the race/color factor guided our decisions here.”

At the Miami Herald, world editor John Yearwood said of the Egyptian bombing, “we stripped the story across the top of the front page.

“The reasons why the Sharm el-Sheik bombings didn’t get the saturation coverage that London received had to do with a number of factors, none of which excuses the lack of play. One reason is that it occurred in a part of the world where, unfortunately, bombings — suicide and otherwise — are common. In fact, there was a bombing in Egypt not too long ago and numerous bombings in Lebanon, including one that claimed the life of the former prime minister and led to dramatic political changes there. And there’s Israel.

“Another factor had to do with the fact that the G8 meeting was taking place in Scotland,” continued Yearwood, who is also treasurer of the National Association of Black Journalists. “With the heads of the major industrial nations meeting not far away and tremendous media coverage about Live 8 and poverty leading up to the summit, it was easy for the media to triangulate. Again, these reasons don’t excuse the dearth of coverage. I wouldn’t totally discount the ‘people like us’ argument, but keep in mind that the Kenya and Tanzania bombings received a lot of coverage.”

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Gainesville Residents Weigh In on Planned Paper

“Local activist Vivian Filer got more than she bargained for when she complained that The Gainesville Sun did not cover the black community — and so did The New York Times Co. when it responded to those concerns,” Wes Smith wrote in a piece datelined Gainesville, Fla., today in the Orlando Sentinel.

“Filer was hoping for more news about her east Gainesville neighborhood in the Sun. Instead, the Sun, which is owned by the Times Co., created an entire new weekly tabloid aimed at Gainesville’s black residents.

“The Gainesville Guardian, set to debut in August, appears to be the nation’s first weekly newspaper by a major media company specifically aimed at black readers.

“But some media watchers have suggested that the Guardian may conjure up comparisons to the 1950s and 1960s, when the mainstream press relegated news about blacks to separate pages.

“‘If the Sun’s goal is to improve substantially the coverage of that community with this effort, that can’t be all bad,’ said Keith Woods, dean of the faculty at the Poynter Institute, a journalism research and educational center in St. Petersburg. ‘But we come from a history of the “colored sections” and “black pages” and other abominations meant to maintain separation of the races — and it is very difficult not to summon those ghosts with this kind of thing.'”

However, activist Filer welcomes the new paper, Smith reported.

“‘They are giving me my own column, too — The Health Filer,’ said Filer, also a veteran nurse and college nursing instructor,” Smith wrote.

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Black Perspectives on “Hustle and Flow” Film

The film “Hustle and Flow,” the John Singleton-produced independent film about a pimp who wants to be a rapper, captivated the Sundance Film Festival this year. And in the weekend box office receipts, it ranked No. 7 among the top-grossing films.

Shot in non-touristy South Memphis, the movie was also a critical hit, though film criticism is one of those newspaper jobs barely penetrated by people of color.

However, African American columnists weighed in to augment a couple of black film critics:

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. . . And Speaking of Hip-Hop and Violence

“Three men were shot multiple times outside a Flatiron bar early Saturday and two people well-connected to the hip-hop community were taken into custody,” Lindsay Faber and Jeff Kearns reported Sunday in New York’s Newsday.

“. . . The fight spilled out onto the street, and two men took out guns and opened fire. A 26-year-old man was shot in the head, a 28-year-old man was shot three times about his body, and a 30-year-old man was shot twice in his arm and torso, police said.

“Two of the victims were cousins and one was a busboy from the bar.

“All were expected to recover.

“Immediately following the shooting, two suspects employed by The Source, a popular hip-hop magazine and entertainment company, including its general manager, were handcuffed and led down West 23rd Street, police sources said.

“Neither Leroy Peeples, the general manager, nor Alvin Chiles, who works in sales for the company, had been officially charged Saturday night.”

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Bob Schieffer’s Reference to Loud Rap: Not Pretty

“And finally today, another in our occasional comments on the cell phone culture,” host Bob Schieffer began his weekly commentary yesterday on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation.”

“I realized a long time ago that cell phones are not to communicate, they are the new cigarette, something to grab when we’re nervous.

“But I have come to believe they are something more, a magic carpet that takes us from reality to a different place, like a child who reads ‘Harry Potter’ or the drunk who believes he is invisible, as in, It’s OK, honey, they’ll never see us over here.

“Cell phone users are transported to a place where they no longer see or hear the world around them. Unfortunately, in the world around them, where the rest of us are, we hear them. It’s like standing on the corner when one of those cars that blare rap music stops for a light. Mercifully, the cars move on.”

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Paper Finds AIDS Rising Among Native People

The Gannett Co.’s diversity page calls attention to “AIDS takes a growing toll on Native Americans” by Judy Nichols, which ran July 3 in the Arizona Republic:

“With AIDS cases increasing in the most remote Native American outposts, the isolated, insular nature of some of those communities may be their downfall,” it begins.

“Those who thought the isolation would protect them, that the disease was only found in urban areas, now see it cropping up in the smallest villages, far from the nearest clinic, places where the lack of health care means people often wait until they’re very sick to get help.

“And late diagnoses mean more transmission and quicker deaths.

“‘Because some Native villages, reservation rancherias and pueblos are small and isolated, HIV/AIDS could wipe out entire communities if not aggressively addressed,’ said Irene Vernon, who has written a book on Native Americans and HIV/AIDS titled Killing Us Quietly.

“Epidemics have wiped out Native populations before.”

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Roberts’ Thoughts Unclear on First Amendment

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has prepared a summary of the First Amendment and media-related cases handled by U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., and concluded that “It is not easy to discern Judge Roberts’ thoughts on First Amendment, free press and freedom of information issues.”

“Still, Roberts’ collected works leave cause for concern among free press advocates. One of the early briefs he coauthored at the Solicitor General’s office, in urging the Court to deny review of a prior restraint against CNN, argued, ‘The critical point is that the First Amendment is part of the rule of law, not above it.’

“And a decision he wrote earlier this year stripped newsletter publishers of an attorney fees award because, he held, the government was justified in defending a rule requiring the publishers to register as commodities traders,” the committee said Thursday.

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“Does U.S. Care About Niger Now?”

“Let us hope an administration that used Niger to fake out the world for its invasion of Iraq can take the time to go back to that country to prevent death to many times more people,” Derrick Z. Jackson wrote Friday in the Boston Globe. “To almost the complete silence of the United States, Niger, one of the world’s poorest nations, was hit last year by natural weapons of mass destruction — locusts and drought.

“. . . This week, the United Nations and Oxfam pleaded for the world to pay attention. While [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld got us into war over fears of 300,000 Americans being killed, 3.6 million people in Niger — one-third of its population — are already malnourished, and 2.5 million of them face outright famine.”

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