[NYTr] Tsunami Disaster Highlights Corporate Media Hypocrisy

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

sent by Peter Phillips (activ-l) - Dec 30, 2004

Tsunami Disaster Highlights Corporate Media Hypocrisy

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.]


Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/