The Easy vs. The Hard

The New York Times has an above the fold story about the famine in Niger. It pretty much is a stock famine piece, except that it suggests that the human rights nightmare can be solved easily with aid from foreign countries. The UN is working with other aid organizations to bring aid into the country. Nearly 2 million people are at risk of dying of starvation.

Much of this disaster was suspected last November, when experts monitoring Niger's farms found a 220,000-ton shortfall - about 7.5 percent of the normal crop - in the harvest of grains, especially the millet that is the staple of most people's diet.

Among others, the United Nations World Food Program and Doctors Without Borders sounded alarms, and Niger's government, with World Food Program approval, quickly asked donors to give Niger 71,000 tons of food aid and $3 million for the 400,000 most vulnerable farmers and herders.

By May, it had received fewer than 7,000 tons of food and one $323,000 donation, from Luxembourg.

"I think everyone knew that a crisis was going on," said Johanne Sekkenes, the Niger mission head of Doctors Without Borders, in an interview in Niamey, the capital. "But the answer given at the time, from governments and international agencies in Niger, was that the ongoing, normal development programs should be reinforced."

Niger's government ruled out both free food aid and health care to hungry families, preferring to sell surplus millet at subsidized prices in an effort to force the price of scarce millet down. But millet prices skyrocketed, forcing families to sell cattle and other goods to buy food.

So, a famine in Niger, which can be solved with aid from foreign countries gets this kind of treatment, while the genocide in Sudan doesn't make the cut. How is that possible?

Why are the easy stories on the front page and the difficult ones, both in terms of access and coverage buried by the paper? Are genocides not as important as famines? One is a primarily natural disaster (though debatable that government policies in Niger made the bad situation worse). The other is a manmade disaster with a death toll that is already egregious and international law demands a response though few have answered the call.

Both should be front page stories, yet the New York Times doesn't consider the situation in Sudan worth its time. And that is a truly telling indictment of the Times editorial staff. They simply don't believe that genocide is a story worthy of front page coverage.