Home > Tsunami Disaster Highlights Corporate Media Hypocrisy

Tsunami Disaster Highlights Corporate Media Hypocrisy

by Open-Publishing - Friday 31 December 2004
9 comments

Edito International Catastrophes

by Peter Phillips

The terrible earthquake/tsunami disaster, along coastlines of the Indian Ocean, left tens of thousands dead and many times more people homeless and weakened.

Front pages news stories swept the US corporate media -12,000 dead, 40,000, 60,000 and 100,000 made progressive day by day headlines. Twenty-four hour TV news provided minute by minute updates with added photos and live aerial shots of the effected regions.

As the days after unfolded, personal stories of survival and loss were added to the overall coverage. Unique stories such as the 20 day old miracle baby found floating on a mattress, and the eight year old who lost both parents and later found by her uncle, were human interest features.

Individualized reports from Americans caught in the catastrophe made national news and numbers of Europeans, and North Americans involved were a key part of the continuing story. US embassies set up hotlines for relatives of possible victims to seek information. Quickly added into the corporate media mix was coverage on how the US was responding with relief aid and dollars. In Crawford, Texas President Bush announced that he had formed an international coalition to respond to the massive tsunami disaster.

The US corporate media coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, for most Americans, was shocking, and emotional. Empathic Americans, with the knowledge that a terrible natural disaster of huge significant to hundreds of thousands people had occurred, wanted to help in any way they could. Church groups held prayer sessions for the victims, and the Red Cross received an upsurge of donations.

The US corporate media coverage of the tsunami disaster exposes a huge hypocrisy in the US press. Left uncovered this past year was the massive disaster that has befell Iraqi civilians. Over 100,000 civilians have died since the beginning of the US invasion and hundreds of thousands more are homeless and weakened. In late October 2004 the British Lancet medical journal published a scientific survey of households in Iraq that calculated over 100,000 civilians, mostly women and children, have died from war related causes. The study, formulated and conducted by researchers at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University and the College of Medicine at Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, involved a complex process of sampling households across Iraq to compare the numbers and causes of deaths before and after the invasion in March 2003. The mortality rate in these families worked out to 5 per 1,000 before the invasion and 12.3 per 1,000 after the invasion. Extrapolate the latter figure to the 22 million population of Iraq, and you end up with 100,000 total civilian deaths. The most common cause of death was aerial bombing followed by strokes and heart attacks. Recent civilian deaths in Fallujah would undoubtedly add significantly to the total.

The Iraqi word for disaster is museeba. Surly the lose of life from war in Iraq is as significant a meseeba as the Indian Ocean tsunami, yet where is the US corporate media coverage of thousands of dead and homeless? Where are the live aerial TV shots of the disaster zones and the up-close photos of the victims? Where are the survivor stories - the miracle child who lived thought a building collapsed by US bombs and rescued by neighbors? Where are the government official’s press releases of regret and sorrow? Where is the international coalition for relief of civilians in Iraq and the upsurge in donations for Red Cross intervention? Would not Americans, if they knew, be just as caring about Iraqi deaths as they are for the victims of the tsunami?

The US corporate media has published Pentagon statements on civilian deaths in Iraq as unknown and dismissed the Lancet Medical Journal study. It seems US media concerns are for victims of natural disasters, while the man-made disasters, such as the deliberate invasion of another country by the US, are better left unreported.

Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored a media research organization.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04...

Forum posts

  • So true, 99% of jounalists have either lost their integrity or aren’t allowed to portray the truth as it should be. The destruction and massacre in Iraq is/was caused by people choosing to harm other people for an illegal, illegitimate reasons. The sadness due to the tsunami is terrible, we see the pictures children who have lost both parents and of a father who has lost his family and livelyhood, however we musn’t forget what is still going on daily in Iraq. The only story in mainstream media of humanity was of the boy who had lost all his family and all of his limbs due to American bombs, I didn’t see the UK or USA media once show a story of the peoples agony and suffering after that.
    You ask yourself why don’t these people, these popstars, these leaders and these celebrities who are raising money and are in the public eye. Ask them, if they think the Iraqi people are less human than anywhere else or doesn’t it matter cuz they are used to strife and trouble. We all know the media are wankers and don’t report fairly, they will deflect from the real truth at any opportunity. Bono Sting Geldof, respect for what you have done but fuckin stand up against mainstream opinion for once and sing a song for Iraq, that the main stream media cannot ignore. NO DAILY MAIL POSSE

  • It never fails. Lefties can’t even resist using dead bodies to make cheap points.

    • It never fails. Lefties can’t even resist using dead bodies to make cheap points.

      Weren’t you suppposed to say, "there you go again"? - and anyway, a more appropriate comparison would be made with last year’s (to the day?) disaster in Bam, Iran - pictures of horribly maimed survivors being dug out of the earthquake rubble caused an outpouring of media "sympathy", and yet pictures of horribly maimed survivors being dug out of the bombing rubble in Iraq did not. So, ya’ll good christian rightwing assholes, riddle me this - why is it a terrible tragedy if it’s an accident that tens of thousands of innocents lose their lives, but not if it’s on purpose? Not if it was planned and carried out in icy premeditation?

    • i feel sorry for what has happened and i am doing evrything i can do to help and it would be great if you did to!!!!! lefties are great so dont dis!!!

  • I had the same thoughts as the above story over the coverage of the tsunami. I had a hard time discussing the problems there with my Iraqui friend, living in Bagdad. Which situation is worse and is that even an appropriate comparison. Why don’t we see anyting of the devistation we have caused in Iraq, but wall to wall coverage of tsunami. It would be nice if all the nations of the world ralied behind iraq, and tried to get some results there, before it is too late. They could sure use some humanitarian aid there.
    And to the person, who posted just above, why don’t you find a new occupation or cause. this is not about right or left, it is about humanity.

    • If it’s about humanity, where were you and your cohort while Iraqis were suffering under Saddam Hussein? I guess their conditions were not that much of a disaster for you. Ultimately what you are saying is that you support Saddam and his regime.

    • It never fails. Righties can’t resist acting like Saddam was the fault of the left, even though he was propped up by the U.S. until the 1st Gulf war, then George senior encouraged the Kurds to overthrow him and did nothing once Saddam started gassing them all. Nope, it’s the hypocritical left who are to blame for all this.

    • For the writer statiing that the pointing out of the hypocisy of the tsunami coverage is simply a statement of support for Sadam’s regime.....Sadam’s butchery was nothing compared to George’s.

    • Not to get too far off topic but the media also has a selective view in regards to democratic elections.
      They went on endlessly about the Ukraine, but completely overlook the fraudulent election of Bush