On Monday the 15th of April, coordinated bombings in Boston left 3 people dead and over 140 injured. We don't know who was responsible, but we can be certain that the physical, emotional and infrastructural effects are incalculably deep. The national news of most countries is dominated by the tragedy, and we ask ourselves how something like this could happen.
On Monday the 15th of April, coordinated bombings in Iraqi cities left at least 31 people dead and over 200 injured. We don't know who was responsible, but we can be certain that the physical, emotional and infrastructural effects are incalculably deep. Most people have no idea that this tragedy has occurred.
Like many people, my question when I see these things is: why? Why would anyone want to destroy the lives of innumerable unknown others? But also: why are our reactions to these two tragedies so strikingly different from one another? And the reactions are strikingly different. Yesterday, having lunch on my own, I switched on the TV. The Boston marathon attack was the headline story on every news programme, without exception. The BBC News website (www.procrastinationwhichfeelsvirtuousandeducational.com) had not only earmarked the bombings as its top story, but provided links to Obama's latest statements on the attacks, an annotated map of where the attacks occurred, an article about 'life after limb loss' and a picture gallery, not to mention the in-depth 'Special Report'. Facebook condolences to the victims in Boston flooded my newsfeed, proclaiming 'Pray for Boston'. There are no traces of the Iraq bombings in Spanish television news. They don't even make it into the top 3 'Middle East' stories on BBC News. I can't remember the last time news from Iraq found its way into a Facebook status.
And it's not about geographical distance. Spain and the UK are both roughly 5600 kilometres from Iraq and 5900 kilometres from Boston. So what is it about? One thing must be the element of shock. The news from Boston was a brutal, unpredicted and unpredictable disaster. The uncomfortable truth is that Iraqi bombings have become achingly familiar, to the point that they elicit neither the reaction they might have once nor the reaction they merit. The fact I am forced to face is that the Boston bombings captured my attention and those in Iraq did not. But is the news really just there to entertain me? If a situation goes on too long, should we stop reporting it in case people get a bit bored? I wonder, if every bombing in the Middle East were top news, would national frustration not build, would we not say sooner that 'enough's enough'?
But I can't help wondering if there are deeper, more unpalatable reasons for our comparative indifference which go beyond the mere lack of the 'element of surprise'. In the last fifteen-ish years, the internet has rapidly made us negotiators of a much more globalised and connected world. Somehow we have to find ways of responding to in-depth, immediate knowledge about myriad people and events from countless countries around the world. And yet, while the technological shift has been radical, the response to it in the west has been startlingly conservative. Instead of allowing it to make the previously invisible and unreachable more real, we have dealt with the new welter of information by sorting it into the same old categories of 'newsworthy' and 'un-newsworthy' - of 'us' and 'them' - which have existed throughout history, which have bred distrust, which have ultimately justified wars.
I get the feeling that there's some odd sense in which we believe that Americans are really more like Spaniards or Brits (or, I dare say, the French, Australians or Canadians) than are Iraqis. And I'm sure the people who feel that way are equally aware of the idea that 'all people are people', that no one is better or worse than anyone else. Citizenship classes which assert the equality of all people, the importance of respect and the universality of human rights can instil a set of principles by which school behaviour and public actions can be measured. But if the traditional categories of 'the West' and 'the rest' remain entrenched in our media - if all the information we receive is filtered through these values - how can we truly internalise a sense of shared humanity?
Pray for Boston. Yes, it's so important. But I also must pray for Iraq. For the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For North Korea. The One I'm praying to doesn't go on Facebook, doesn't surf news websites, doesn't channel hop - He sees things, and people, as they really are. And I want to try a bit harder to do the same.
But I can't help wondering if there are deeper, more unpalatable reasons for our comparative indifference which go beyond the mere lack of the 'element of surprise'. In the last fifteen-ish years, the internet has rapidly made us negotiators of a much more globalised and connected world. Somehow we have to find ways of responding to in-depth, immediate knowledge about myriad people and events from countless countries around the world. And yet, while the technological shift has been radical, the response to it in the west has been startlingly conservative. Instead of allowing it to make the previously invisible and unreachable more real, we have dealt with the new welter of information by sorting it into the same old categories of 'newsworthy' and 'un-newsworthy' - of 'us' and 'them' - which have existed throughout history, which have bred distrust, which have ultimately justified wars.
I get the feeling that there's some odd sense in which we believe that Americans are really more like Spaniards or Brits (or, I dare say, the French, Australians or Canadians) than are Iraqis. And I'm sure the people who feel that way are equally aware of the idea that 'all people are people', that no one is better or worse than anyone else. Citizenship classes which assert the equality of all people, the importance of respect and the universality of human rights can instil a set of principles by which school behaviour and public actions can be measured. But if the traditional categories of 'the West' and 'the rest' remain entrenched in our media - if all the information we receive is filtered through these values - how can we truly internalise a sense of shared humanity?
Pray for Boston. Yes, it's so important. But I also must pray for Iraq. For the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For North Korea. The One I'm praying to doesn't go on Facebook, doesn't surf news websites, doesn't channel hop - He sees things, and people, as they really are. And I want to try a bit harder to do the same.
I'll certainly think about them a bit harder. And maybe your all-seeing guy could do a bit more intervening to stop children having their limbs blown off?
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the fifth paragraph hits the nail.
But I would make another point. We shouldn't just ask ourselves if an event is newsworthy or not. Have we ever asked ourselves 'what are the news?' and hence 'what's the news bulletin?'
Just check the Oxford Dictionary. You can read 'news: newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent events'; and 'news bulletin: a short radio or television broadcast of news reports'.
The noteworthy aspect of the information is implicit in the own word. So the news is not just information about what happens in the world. Unfortunately, Iraq events are not news because they are not something new ('it's not a new 'cause it's not new').
So the newsworthiness of the news is not only influenced by our perception of the world or how we label each country, but by its contingency. Unfortunately? Yes. True? Unfortunately yes.