Re-imagineering news from Africa
- 4 May 06, 02:20 PM
We're into big idea territory with a live satellite link-up with Jeffrey Sachs, director of the , in New York.
After some hiccups in getting the connection up and running, Sachs laid out his vision - ending extreme poverty, which he believes we can do by 2025.
To do this, he is talking about giving villages in Africa the tools to help farmers. This can be as simple as providing fertilisers. With a little bit of help, he said, you can triple food production, tackle malaria and provide clean drinking water.
And the role of the media? To tell people that they should care about what is happening in places far from home.
"Africa's fate is our own," said Sachs.
But there is also an image problem as far as Africa is concerned. How often is news from Africa about famine, wars and corruption.
Sachs took the media to task for reporting on problems but not on the solutions. This strikes at the heart of the traditional definition of news.
Is something news only when things go wrong or is there room for positive news out of places like Africa?
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Maybe there is a preception that something is more important to focus on when it is going wrong. So there is thinking in place that says when something is wrong, we have to draw attention to it, so it can be put right.
I think there has definitley been a focus on bad news for a long time and then some dodgy little human interest story at the end to lighten things up. This to me relates to what Richard Dreyfuss was saying yesterday that there is not enough depth and follow up on topics reported in the news.
If we want to create a positive outcome there needs to be (to quote the old saying) more focus on the solution rather than the problem. Especially, there doesn't seem to be enough information widely available on what we as people can do to help with these situations (africa, middle east) - except for just giving money to charities which doesn't provide much contact with the results for the people giving, if you can see direct results happing from your donations you would likely to be tempted to give more. It would be useful for people to have a more direct exchange of ideas with people from these poorer countries, and for people there (in the poorer countries) to be able to rasie funds for projects they need in their area directly from people in richer countries. Maybe the media can have a role as a communication link to show what projects are going right, so that ctiizens can target these projects and give more to help them flourish.
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Africa required a detailed survey keeping in view the selfsuffency of food & water resources, this survevy can be done through UNO with the help of student voluntiers on the basis of universal brotherhood. I know lot of people in this world want to do some thing for humanity but no body want to coordenate them and appreciate them as a team.
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