In the New Yorker article “Alms Dealers” Philip Gourevitch (2010) argues a pessimistic view of the influence of the media on Biafra regarding funding. In congruence with his argument, but in a different context, I argue that the media was also partially a negative influence in the case of Haiti’s cholera epidemic after the devastating earthquake which struck on January 12, 2010 (BBC News). The media was complicit in facilitating the conditions in Haiti which led to the cholera epidemic that was reported to have broken out in October of 2010 (CDC). Upon viewing several online newspaper articles dating from the day after the earthquake in Haiti, January 13, 2010, it is clearly evident that a lot of the Western media was biased towards the West and placed its interests towards Westerners and Haitians affiliated with the West above those who were not. This negligence of impoverished Haitians could have been complicit in denying appropriate coverage of those who were eventually affected by the cholera outbreak, which in turn could have ultimately facilitated lack of financial and social support to amending things like sanitation, water supply, and health care for the Haitians affected by poverty.
One of the major ways in which the Western media prevented attention to alleviating other underlying issues, like sanitation, in Haiti was by protecting its own Western consumers. For example, the BBC news article “Haiti devastated by massive earthquake” protects its viewers from the atrocity of the earthquake in Haiti. In this article, there is a short video clip which presents some of the horrific activity in Haiti; however, there is also an advisory saying, “Guidance: This video contains some disturbing images” (BBC News)(Fig. 1) so that some viewers can choose to ignore it. Moreover, the article is laid out with headings so that readers can pick and choose what they want to read. Both of these examples set the grounds for viewers having the ability to ignore anything unsettling or stark that was and is going on in Haiti. In essence, this article facilitates ‘not in my backyard’ notions amongst viewers, as they are able to socially distance themselves from Haiti and take comfort in that distance. Furthermore, the article does little to capture the views of actual Haitians in distress; instead, it shifts focus once again back to its Western audience by asking, “Have you been affected by the earthquake?” If attention was drawn to aspects of Haiti’s situation that were unsettling and concern was given to how the earthquake affected Haitians in Haiti, perhaps more financial and supportive aid from viewers of the media would have been given. Moreover, if attention was given to the lives of people in Haiti, viewers could have ultimately had the opportunity to see that there were other problems, like issues with water supply and sanitation that needed to be resolved as well.
Another way in which the media neglected impoverished Haitians who were susceptible to cholera is evident in how it focused on foreigners who could have been in Haiti and needed to be rescued immediately. For example, the BBC article describes foreigners from China, Jordan, Brazil, and France who may have been affected by the earthquake. A similar trend is evident in other articles, like in The Star, which chose to report on how Canadians affiliated with Haiti were affected (Woods et al. 2010). This article mentions Stephen Harper’s stance, that the earthquake was “an enormous disaster in a country that already has too many problems” (Woods et al. 2010). It also very briefly alludes to the fact that the Canadian government was aware of the problems in Haiti; however, the authors of the article chose to side step this and continue with the majority of the article focussing on Canadians. By doing this, readers could have potentially assumed that the situation was relatively under control and that they ought to shift focus towards foreigners ‘stuck’ in Haiti. For example, the article mentions how two RCMP Mounties were missing in Haiti and expresses sympathy to Toronto’s Haitian community. Further evidence of this trend is demonstrated in a CBC article which describes how the earthquake has affected Haiti-born, Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean (CBC News). Despite the fact that all of these individuals mentioned above deserved attention, negligent attention was given to the possible 3 million Haitians (BBC News) who were affected by the earthquake as a trade off.
In conclusion, it seems as though the Western media that was produced on the day after the earthquake portrayed Haiti as a lost cause, and that the only hope was to save foreigners in Haiti from Haiti. Furthermore, the CBC article chose to focus on this dismal view by including only one of Stephen Harper’s quotes regarding the earthquake—that Canada would try to “help those people who can be saved” (CBC News). By portraying Haiti as a salvage situation and by neglecting to adequately cover issues like poverty and sanitation in favour of Western affiliation to Haiti, the media presented lacking attention to attempts of making Haiti a safe place that would flourish without disease like cholera. Overall, it is evident that, possibly, the media’s negligence of impoverished Haitians partially contributed to the dismal attempts that were made to promote better sanitation and health care, which could have ultimately mitigated or prevented the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
Fig. 1 Disclaimer protecting its audience from the disaster and impoverished situation in Haiti (BBC News).
References Cited
BBC News
2010 Haiti devastated by massive earthquake. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8455629.stm, accessed January 15, 2011.
CBC News
2010 Haitian earthquake a catastrophe: Jean. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/13/haiti-governor-general.html, accessed January 15, 2011.
CDC
2010 Cholera Confirmed in Haiti, October 21, 2010. http://www.cdc.gov/haiticholera/situation/, accessed January 15, 2011.
Gourevitch, Philip
2010 Alms Dealers. New Yorker Oct 11, 2010:102-109.
Woods, Allan, Richard J. Brennan, Tonda MacCharles, and Andrew Chung
2010 Canada responds as 100,000 feared dead in Haiti earthquake. http://www.thestar.com/news/world/haiti/article/750150--canada-responds-as-100-000- feared-dead-in-haiti-earthquake, accessed January 15, 2011.
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