Yo, What About Guatemala?

As the fine blog at Worldhum noted last week, coverage of the natural disaster in Guatemala has been conspicuous in its absence, especially in the media of its almost-neighbor to the north, the U.S.

Courtesy of the Tyndall Report , here’s a breakdown on last week’s broadcast coverage by the three major networks:
Broadcast Coverage by Minutes (ABC, CBS, NBC)*.

1. Kashmir earthquake: kills at least 30,000 58 mins.
2. Hurricane Katrina aftermath along Gulf Coast 32 mins.
3. Iraq constitution: referendum vote previewed 26 mins.
4. Floods, heavy rains along eastern seaboard 17 mins.
5. Influenza: avian strain outbreak feared 12 mins.
6. Justice Harriet Miers nomination debated 11 mins.
7. Iraq combat: US-led fighting continues 10 mins.
8. Nuclear proliferation to terrorists feared 7 mins.
9. Catholic Church pedophile priests scandal 6 mins.
10. Police: New Orleans suspect beating video 6 mins.

* Coverage for the week of October 10 – 14, 2005.

It is gratifying to see the Kashmir earthquake get its due, but do 40,000 or more people have to die to get some news coverage? Well actually, no–if it’s on home soil. The Hurricane Katrina story is still alive and well, even though just as many people died in Guatemala and a greater percentage of the population is homeless. At least in New Orleans they could find the dead bodies; in Guatemala they’re permanently buried in the hardening mud. And I know it’s not all about numbers, but the networks spent far more time on floods in the northeast US that everyone saw coming (that killed 11 people) than they did on mudslides in Central America that came out of nowhere (and killed 650+).

Thankfully we can rely on the two news outlets who actually cover international news as reporters, not sensationalists: the BBC and National Public Radio. (A coincidence that they are funded mostly by the public and don’t have to please advertisers?)

NPR Guatemala Stories

BBC Guatemala Stories

Chalk some of this up to the fact that the general public is ready to curl up in a safe place and forget it all. We started out the year with a devastating tsunami, followed by scores of floods, earthquakes, plane crashes, bombings, mudslides, forest fires, genocide, and who knows what else. If you get through 2006 without a scrape from a disaster or a terrorist, you would seem to be blessed. So if there’s a bit of charity fatique going on, it’s understandable.

But guess what? If you’re still alive and your possessions are intact, it’s time to dig down and give again. I’ll leave it up to you to decide where, but based on what’s coming out in the news about the terrible job the Red Cross has been doing in Louisiana and Mississippi, there’s something to the argument that big, bureacratic charities tend to operate like big bureacracies.

Check out Charity Navigator to see what organizations are putting their money to good use.

I’m a big fan of social entrepreneurism: loan a man money for a fishing boat so he can start earning a living, rather than making him sit around a year waiting for red tape to clear to give him a new one. Make microloans to local construction companies who will get things happening in a hurry since they already have suppliers and a staff. That’s a simplistic disaster scenario of what kind of work the Grameen Foundation does, so go check out their website and find out more. They’re accomplishing great things in a lot of places, and giving people a way to make a living and get going again, not a way to become permanently dependent on aid.
www.gfusa.org