Sunday, 27 March 2011

Help For Haiti?

Who remembers the Haiti earthquake at the beginning of 2010?

Recently, its just struck me that journalism and the news is all a load of bullshit. It will focus on a natural disaster for a couple weeks, and then you won't see any mention of it in the news. Take Japan for example. Its not even been a month since the country was devastated, but I was reading the Daily Mail online, and there wasn't a mention of it. They have whole sections of the website dedicated to Katie Price's newest relationship, and what Lady Gaga was most recently pictured wearing (or not wearing), but there is no mention of the aid Japan is being given, or the ongoing devastation.
You have to pay to access The Times online, and I'm not about to do that, but even so, from what I can see, no mention of Japan.

Anyway, all this got me thinking of Haiti. The world cried at the horrific images and kept their eyes pealed on the news to find out the catastrophic figures. Celebrities donated money and put on charity concerts to help the cause, and for a few months at least, it looked like the world cared.
15 months on, who knows how Haiti is? Who cares how one of the poorest nations in the world is attempting to rebuild? Over 200,000 people died, and 1.5million were left homeless. Everyone was shocked, but did the world give a shit before the earthquake, when 86% of people living in Haiti's capital were living in slum conditions, and 70% of the population lived on $2 a day? And my question is, do they give a shit now? The poor homeless black babies aren't being shown on the news, the crying women aren't welcome on our tv screens, and the concerts are no longer being given, but Haiti is still a complete mess.
Since the earthquake, there has been a cholera outbreak in Haiti which has affected 400,000 people and killed around 4000. And where did I read this? BBCCaribbean.
 I'm not trying to say that the world has turned their backs, because there are still donations and relief workers doing their best to restore Haiti. I just think that the world is so fickle. We turn on the news, we see what's going on in the world, we turn to our family members and say "oh, that's awful", and then we carry on eating our dinner.

The newspapers are always full of bad news, and I hate that they rarely report anything positive, but surely bad news is better than ignorance?
I'm not a political person. Most of the time, I'd prefer to read the latest film reviews or catch up on idle gossip than read an honest to goodness news article. But I'm getting to an age and a maturity level where I'm realising that I can't close my eyes to the world just because I'm afraid of what I'll see.

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