AP, Reuters Challenge WHO Leader’s Contention
Short Takes: Prince at age 11; Ricardo Zuniga; Cheryl Duvall; statehouse coverage; Narda Jones; Bakari Sellers; Catalina Camia; NPR’s “Code Switch”; ASU Cronkite School and Native American journalists; Royce Miles; James Hill; Senate Democrats and Black journalists; Dwayne Haskins; Michele Norris; USA Today’s free graphic novel on Black evictions; Chris Wallace and Nikole Hannah-Jones;
Chauncey Bailey; Lee Bey; Nicholas Casey; SPJ in Puerto Rico; disinformation in communities of color; Barack Obama; Alexandra White; Jonathan Capehart; Arnold Diaz; Corey Johnson; Maya Brown; William Monroe Trotter; Melanie Eversley; Haitian Times; Luis Patiño;
Lee Bey; El Salvador press-freedom crackdown; Mexican pair’s revelations from public records; Dalit-caste journalists; tracking attacks on African journalists; Western Sahara omitted; police assault on Cuban journalist.
Homepage photo: Ethiopia-Tigray conflict, by Human Rights Watch
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Days before Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine, Martin Kimani, Kenyan ambassador to the United Nations, stood up at the emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to warn Russia to desist from attacking its neighbor. He attributed the world’s instability to powerful countries that assault the U.N. Charter by pursuing objectives that run counter to international peace and security. (Credit: YouTube)
AP, Reuters Challenge WHO Leader’s Contention
The director-general of the World Health Organization charged Wednesday that the news media are not treating crises around the world equally, and that racism plays a role. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is not the first to say that, and how one reacts depends on the media one consumes, where one’s self-interest lies and one’s preconceived notions.
As Maria Cheng reported for the Associated Press, Tedros “questioned whether ‘the world really gives equal attention to Black and white lives’ – given that the ongoing emergencies in Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria have garnered only a ‘fraction’ of the global concern for Ukraine.
“Tedros acknowledged the war in Ukraine is globally significant, but asked if other crises are being accorded enough attention.
“He also critiqued the media for what he said is its failure to document the ongoing atrocities in Ethiopia, noting that people had been burned alive in the region. ‘I don’t even know if that was taken seriously by the media because of their ethnicity,’ he said. ‘So we need to balance. We need to take every life seriously because every life is precious.’ ”
Tedros, who is from the war-torn Tigray section of that country, “said since a truce was declared in the besieged northern region of Ethiopia three weeks ago, about 2,000 trucks should have been able to enter with food, medicine and other essentials.
“Instead, only about 20 trucks have arrived, said Tedros, a former minister of health in Ethiopia.
“ ‘As we speak, people are dying of starvation,’ he said. ‘This is one of the longest and worst sieges by both Eritrean and Ethiopian forces in modern history.’ ”
Last month, the United Nations raised less than a third of the $4.27 billion requested for relief efforts in Yemen, according to Laurin-Whitney Gottbrath, writing March 17 for Axios, in what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Gottbrath wrote Friday, “In the more than seven years since fighting between a Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-[backed] Houthi rebels began, hundreds of thousands have died of direct and indirect causes and more than 4.3 million people have been internally displaced.” Critics say the United States, which backs the Saudis, shares responsibility.
Two billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population, now live in conflict-affected areas, according to the United Nations, the most conflict since 1945, according to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Still, polls show that as much as Americans are horrified and repulsed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they are more concerned about pocketbook issues such as inflation.
Spokespersons for the New York Times and Washington Post did not respond to requests for comment on Tedros’ accusation.
Lauren Easton replied for the Associated Press, “I’d point you to AP’s standout coverage of Tigray.
Easton added: “AP continues to report on Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria, of course.
“AP won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 2019 for its Yemen civil war coverage.
“See AP Syria coverage here.
“Afghanistan. (News director Kathy Gannon and others report from inside the country. See Kathy’s latest here.”
A spokesperson for Reuters replied, “Reuters is deeply committed to covering the conflicts happening around the world and to ensuring our coverage is global. We have staff in 200 locations around the globe covering these conflicts and wider news from both a local and global perspective, including, for example, the war in Ethiopia, which has been the subject of extensive investigations by Reuters since the conflict erupted.”
Still, few would deny that the massive coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, justified by the global consequences, emotional ties, news-media accessibility and the threat of nuclear war, dwarfs that of the other conflicts.
But is race a factor? Those who say yes maintain that that element costs the United States as well as the countries in crisis.
“I was in New York last week,” the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said April 11 on the “PBS NewsHour.” “I met all the African ambassadors to the United Nations. They’re very worried that this big effort to respond to the crisis in Ukraine distracts the international community from solidarity with African countries that also are hit by very, very severe humanitarian crises.”
On “Democracy Now!” Jayati Ghosh, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who taught for 35 years at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, said Wednesday, “I don’t think people in the West realize it — is the extent to which the hypocrisy in the sort of moral double standards are evident in this Ukraine war. I mean, yes, it is terrible, what is happening. It is a brutal and completely unjustified invasion, and people are dying, and people are suffering.
“But more people have died in Yemen in the last three months, with arms provided by the U.S. and very, very brutal attacks. Children are starving in Yemen and in Afghanistan because of U.S. policy.
“And so, you know, everyone else in the world is saying, ‘How come it’s only when there are white Europeans who are affected that you care at all?’ I think the — you know, really, I don’t think people in the West realize the extent to which they have absolutely lost moral legitimacy in terms of the very, very different reaction they have exposed in this war to white European lives and all other lives in the rest of the world. This is not lost to anyone in the developing world. There is a very, very strong reaction.”
On the same program Friday, author Vijay Prashad went further. “There was an appalling bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol,” Ukraine. “You know, immediately thereafter, the U.S. government talked about war crimes. The International Criminal Court was suborned to say that this is going to have a file open, you know, for war crimes personally against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and so on.
“But have we forgotten the Amiriyah shelter [in Iraq], 1,500 civilians killed in 1991 when the United States bombed a shelter, knowing full well there were civilians there? No question of any interrogation of war crimes. The language of war crimes was not used in Libya after NATO quite ruthlessly bombed that country. Peter Olson of NATO, the lead attorney, said openly, ‘Look, NATO can’t commit war crimes. War crimes are committed by other people, not by NATO.’ [Olson said NATO did not deliberately target civilians].
“I mean, just this recent month, there were Israeli airstrikes which struck the Rimal medical center, two doctors killed. Do we know their names? Ayman Abu al-Auf and Moeen al-Aloul. I mean, they were killed in the middle of all this, but there was no question of calling the Israeli strikes war crimes.”
Kenya’s U.N. ambassador, Martin Kimani, won praise on Feb. 24 when he compared Russian aggression to that of Africa’s former colonial masters.
But at a March 4 webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of State in Cape Town, South Africa, African journalists were skeptical of the notion that Africa should join in the Western condemnation. “This is not our war,” a reporter from Madagascar told Molly Phee, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African Affairs.
“Much of this is true.”
Gathara also wrote that some Africans “seem unable to recognise that what the world looks like to a large extent depends on where one is standing. And that many here are responding not so much to the invasion itself, but rather to Western reactions to it, which have rekindled long-running grievances that much of Africa has had with the West.”
One of those grievances has been how the West covers the rest of the world, particularly Africa. In January, African organizations announced they “will put 20 leading global media platforms under the microscope to analyse how they tell Africa’s stories, whose voices are being heard, which topics are prioritised and how they are covered. The Global Media Index will also highlight best practices in reporting on the continent.”
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, himself a former Post foreign editor, observed about Ukraine March 14, “Whether intentionally or subconsciously, news organizations make this war more vivid and more tragic by focusing so tightly on victims and refugees. We get to see them as individuals, not as an undifferentiated mass. Viewers and readers are invited, if not forced, to imagine ourselves in similar circumstances.”
That’s not true of Myanmar, Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria and other countries in crisis.
Britain’s Guardian editorialized March 17, aid agencies “find the multiple conflicts, the disastrous conditions in Afghanistan and what is described as the worst-ever hunger crisis in South Sudan have left them torn between grim choices.
“More humanitarian funding is needed, alongside political will and diplomatic energy. The victims of these other wars deserve the same level of support and solidarity rightly seen for the people of Ukraine. Those already too often overlooked must not be pushed further into the shadows.”
- Yasmine Ahmed and Emilie McDonnell, Human Rights Watch: UK Plan to Ship Asylum Seekers to Rwanda is Cruelty Itself
- Ahmed Al-Haj and Samy Magdy, Associated Press: Yemen’s president steps aside amid efforts to end war
- Jonathan Capehart with Zhan Beleniuk, “The Sunday Show,” MSNBC: Ukraine’s first and only Black MP, Zhan Beleniuk, lets Americans know what Ukrainians need (March 20) (video)
- Tim Cocks, Reuters: South Africa’s Ramaphosa blames NATO for Russia’s war in Ukraine (March 18)
- Mike Ludwig, Truthout: Ukraine and Yemen Wars Highlight US’s Role as Biggest Arms Dealer in the World
- Philip Marcelo, Associated Press: Yemen’s president steps aside amid efforts to end war
- Michel Martin, NPR: One expert’s surprise over how [Romanians] reacted to Ukrainian refugees
- Marcus Mitropoulos, Capital Current, Canada: Ottawa’s Black community rallies for Ukraine refugees facing racism in flight from Russia’s invasion
- Tobore Ovuorie, Deutsche Welle: Ukraine war: African students face Russian missiles and racism
- Reporters Without Borders: War in Ukraine: Beware of China’s amplification of Russian propaganda, RSF says
- Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution: Yemen war turns seven (March 24)
- United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees: Displaced Syrians face bleak Ramadan as economic pain follows COVID-19
Short Takes
- “A new Pew Research Center study finds that the total number of reporters assigned to the 50 state capitols to inform citizens about legislative and administrative activity has increased by 11% since 2014, the last time this study was conducted,” the center reported April 5. “The gain comes largely from two main developments: new nonprofit news outlets that are employing statehouse reporters, and a shift to more part-time statehouse reporting. Indeed, although the total number of statehouse reporters has increased, fewer reporters are now covering state governments full time. . . .”
- Police in South Carolina have arrested a man who allegedly sent dozens of threats to Bakari Sellers, Black civil rights attorney, former state lawmaker and television commentator, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Grant Edward Olson Jr., of Asheville, N.C., 48, was arrested April 8. Arrest warrants “show Olson sent dozens of messages to Sellers on Instagram that included racial slurs, indications that Olson was armed and mentioned the killings of African-Americans.”
- Catalina Camia has left her position as editor in chief at CQ Roll Call, Mariam Ahmed reported Sunday for Roll Call, but the veteran journalist did not disclose her next move. Camia joined CQ Roll Call in 2015 and is a former president of the Asian American Journalists Association and of Unity: Journalists of Color. Last month, Camia spoke with the National Press Foundation’s “Widening the Pipeline” fellows about how she leads a newsroom as a woman of color in the high-profile, high stakes arena of political reporting.
- “ ‘Code Switch,’ NPR’s signature podcast on race and identity, is expanding its presence on the radio, through live and virtual events and on social media through a $600,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB),” the corporation announced Monday. “With this two-year grant, NPR is raising the profile of the Code Switch podcast and radio program with an expansion of live and online events and the development of new offerings. With the addition of a new host and a senior editor, the Code Switch team will increase its production of short, news pieces featured on NPR’s flagship news programs, as well as longer features written and produced by influential journalists and scholars, member station contributors, and Code Switch fellows. . . .”
- “Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication has launched a new graduate partnership with the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and Indian Country Today to support an outstanding NAJA member to pursue a master’s degree in the 2022–23 school year and produce content for the national Indian Country Today audience,” the school announced Monday.
- ESPN’s Adam Schefter apologized for a tweet breaking the news of NFL quarterback Dwayne Haskins’ death, AR Shaw reported Monday for the Guardian. “Schefter caught backlash after listing Haskins’ career setbacks while reporting on his death, which occurred when the 24-year-old was hit by a truck in the early hours of Saturday morning. . . . “The sports community spoke out against Schefter’s tweet, which was posted at a time when Haskins’ family, friends, and former teammates were taking in the enormity of his death. Schefter would eventually delete the tweet, but the damage was done.”
- “Michele Norris, a columnist for The Washington Post opinion page who from 2002 to 2012 she was a host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” has won the 2022 Goldsmith Career Award from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “The music of Michele’s writing is matched by its moral power,” said Shorenstein Center Director Nancy Gibbs. “She picks up the hard questions and examines them fearlessly, in a way that has made her one of the great, wise voices of this generation.”
- Writing April 8 about Chris Wallace, Michael Harriot told readers of the Grio that “the water-carrier-for-white-supremacy-turned-CNN+ host challenged Nikole Hannah-Jones, who has an actual degree in history and African-American studies, on actual history, African-Americans and her factual claims that the young white freedom fighters known as ‘the greatest generation’ were responsible for withholding democracy from Black Americans.” Mediaite’s account
- Nicholas Casey will be joining the New York Times Magazine as a staff writer, effective immediately,” Jake Silverstein, editor of the Magazine, announced March 2. “At the Magazine, Nick will be an international correspondent, based in Spain, and writing on a range of subjects. We got a taste of Nick’s talent for magazine longform last year in his wonderful cover story about his father, where his assured sense of narrative and beautiful writing really stood out.” Casey was Madrid bureau chief and previously covered U.S. politics, Venezuela and Colombia.
“This is a 1st in @spj_tweets 112 year history,” she wrote on March 23.
- “Former President Barack Obama is urgently throwing himself into the fight against disinformation, taking a yearslong private fascination into the open as he makes addressing the issue a key pillar of his post-presidency,” Dan Merica and Donie O’Sullivan reported Sunday or CNN. They also wrote, “Obama’s effort has been sweeping, say the former President’s confidants and outside advisers with experience in the tech industry, with Obama convening meetings and conversations with academics, activists, researchers, tech sector leaders, media executives, former government officials and former regulators. . . .”
- The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced April 8 “that nine universities and nonprofits were awarded more than $1.2 million to work on projects to identify solutions that help news organizations and civil society expose and lessen the impact of disinformation on communities of color. The grantees were winners of a Knight open call for proposals that advance independent scholarship, partnerships, tools and interventions to combat disinformation. . . .”
- “Financial Times reporter Alexandra White is receiving the Wiegold Prize in recognition of her talent for covering business topics,“ Chris Rousch reported April 8 for TalkingBizNews. “The prize honors the late Bloomberg Markets senior editor and 18-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal and is given by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism to an alumnus.”
- A memorial planned to honor children who died at an Indian boarding school has received a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation that pushes the project beyond its initial fundraising targets, Stewart Huntington reported Monday for Indian Country Today. He also wrote, “International attention has been focused anew on residential schools since May 2021, when more than 200 graves were found at the former site of the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia, Canada. The creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada in 2008 has led to settlements, the release of historical records and apologies from Canadian officials. The U.S. has been slower to respond, but that could be changing. . . .”
- The Haitian Times in Brooklyn, N.Y., is one of four news organizations awarded one-year fellowships by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. It is to report on foundations and nonprofits working to find solutions in New York’s Haitian community, determining whether nonprofits and foundations are making a difference, and what could help them do even more to solve problems, the Chronicle said.
- “In a study conducted by Fundamedios with support from the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellowship, the organization interviewed 115 journalists and looked at pay studies from several newsrooms. ‘The most common claim expressed was about differences in their working conditions or contracts,” Stephanie Casanova wrote April 5 for the Women’s Media Center. The headline was, “The Low-Balling of Spanish-Language Reporters.” “Latino journalists do the same job as their white peers with fewer resources, and less pay,’ the study found. . . .”
- “El Salvadoran journalists are raising the alarm over a new law that could imprison journalists for 10 to 15 years,” Foreign Press Correspondents USA reported Tuesday. “The country’s congress has authorized harsh prison sentences for news media that reproduce or disseminate messages from gangs, playing into President Nayib Bukele’s long-standing war with press freedoms in the country. A flurry of gang killings in late March prompted Bukele to seek out and win emergency powers, which resulted in the arrests and detainment of some 6,000 people and the penning of the new legislation.”
- In Mexico, journalists Dardo Neubauer and Laura Sánchez Ley launched Archivero (which means “archivist”) last month, Hanaa’ Tameez wrote Monday for Nieman Lab. “They request public records to have them declassified and reveal information that the government kept secret. Their goal is to add context and follow up on current stories in the news and unsolved cases, and to find threads for future stories. Archivero’s work is currently free to access. Sánchez and Neubauer are a team of two and neither of them works on Archivero full-time. They’re funding the project themselves, though they offer paid research and consulting services. They also offer workshops and trainings on Mexico’s transparency laws and the United States’ Freedom of Information Act. . . .”
- “Last year, the African Union in partnership with UNESCO and other press freedom and media organizations, launched a digital platform to track attacks on journalists, help protect them, and hold perpetrators to account,” Patrick Egwu and Ifesinachi Ayogu reported Feb. 4 for the International Journalists’ Network. Noting that “media workers are increasingly arrested, harassed and killed while on the job,” the writers said, “The Platform for the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists in Africa has identified four key objectives: promoting partnerships, prevention, protection and prosecution of perpetrators of crimes against journalists on the continent. This, those behind the initiative say, would be achieved through ‘real time monitoring, reporting and follow-up actions by both the duty and right bearers.’ . . .”
- “Israeli officials recently hosted representatives of Morocco, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates,” Ari Paul reported April 5 for Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting. “For US media, this meant many things, but one thing that didn’t make the papers was that Israel and Morocco share a common goal: maintaining military occupations that are widely condemned throughout the world. . . . What was missing from most of the reports on this subject — or in some cases buried — is Morocco’s ongoing occupation of the Western Sahara region.”
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