Friday, February 17, 2006

Misplaced Priorities

The New York Times manages to cover the growing problem of a major drought in Kenya, which is killing dozens of people since December. This was the number three story in the International section on the New York Times website as of 2:20PM EST.

Where's the story about the Darfur genocide, a manmade horrorshow where hundreds of thousands of people were killed, and millions were displaced? People are still dying and being harassed on a daily basis, but that doesn't get New York Times treatment. And the Sudanese are going to need food relief as well.

At the height of the violence, the NYT was virtually silent, with only an occasional piece. Indeed, Nicholas Kristof ran several vivid and graphic photos on the op-ed page - that conveyed more news than the paper itself ever ran on the story.

The NYT continues to do a grave disserve to its readers by failing to cover Darfur and instead adopts the Hollywood attention grabbing famine relief angle.

It takes local papers to tell the sad tale of the Sudanese genocide.

Go figure.

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