The Media and International Disasters, or Don't Hold Your Famine During the Olympics

When it comes to the media, 45 times more Africans have to die than Europeans to get the same kind of coverage.

Children line up for food in South Sudan.

Some black humour from the world of relief and development: “If you are planning a famine, don’t hold it in summer—we’re on vacation then. Also, avoid U.S. election years.”

That old and sad “joke” we used to tell ourselves years ago to explain why some disasters got covered, and others didn't, came back to me as I thought about the lack of attention being paid to the terrible hunger crisis today in parts of Africa and Yemen.

An estimated 20 million people face starvation in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and parts of Kenya and Nigeria—the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945 according to the UN.

And yet, although the world has known about the situation for months, there has been hardly any news about it in the media.

Sure, there’s been a bit of coverage here and there—the CBC did a fine job in early May. But in general, there has been mostly silence in newspapers, radio or TV.

Why is this the case? I can think of a number of reasons.

First, it’s hard for journalists to get into the most-devastated areas—even NGOs have trouble getting food to those who need it most.

Second, media outlets also have fewer resources and staff to cover stories. Even if they wanted to cover it, it would be hard to find the funds.

Third, it’s hard to tell the story of a famine, which takes months to develop. Unlike a hurricane or earthquake, there are no great pictures to show as the tragedy slowly unfolds.

Fourth there’s the Trump effect; the new President, and his unpredictable ways, has sucked up much of the media oxygen. Throw in all the other news competing for attention, and time for the famine can be hard to find.

Finally, there’s the general fatigue everyone feels over the extended Syria crisis. We hardly have space in our hearts for another disaster. And the media isn’t stupid; they can count the clicks on their websites. They know what people are reading—or not.

What disasters get covered by the media and which don’t was the subject of a 2007 study of major U.S. TV network news by Thomas Eisensee and David Stromberg.

Titled “News, Droughts, Floods, and U.S. Disaster Relief,” and published in the May, 2007 issue Quarterly Journal of Economics, the study looked at 5,000 natural disasters between 1968 and 2002 that affected 125 million people—and how they were covered by ABC, CBC, NBC and CNN.

The study found that coverage was affected by whether the disaster occurs at the same time as other newsworthy events, such as the Olympic Games, along with where it happened and how many people died.

(This certainly was true during the 2012 Sahel food crisis, which took place at the same time as the London Olympics; the media dedicated most of its reporters to the games, and the events took up most of the space and time.)

The authors found that while the media cover around 30 percent of the earthquakes and volcanic disasters, less than five percent of droughts and food shortages are covered—despite many more people dying due to droughts and food shortages.

They even came up with a numerical comparison: For every one or two people who dies in an earthquake or volcano, 32,920 people must die of food shortage to receive the same media coverage.

The study also revealed geographical bias, showing that it 45 times more Africans have to die in a disaster than Europeans to get the same kind of media coverage.

(These findings echo the old 1960s “Racial Equivalence Scale” created by American reporters to show the minimum number of people who had to die in plane crashes in different countries, compared to the U.S., before there was coverage. According to the scale, “one hundred Czechs were equal to 43 Frenchmen, and the Paraguayans were at the bottom.”)

While media coverage of disasters in the developing world is sporadic, one thing it can do is spur government action: “We conclude that media coverage induces extra U.S. relief to victims in Europe and on the American continent, at the expense of victims elsewhere,” the authors state.

This makes the role of the media doubly important; depending on what they choose to focus on, people may live or die as governments respond by providing aid.

But what does this mean for today, when the media is greatly diminished by falling circulation and fewer viewers and listeners?

Unlike during the period of the study, the media has less impact. It may reach fewer of the public, but the government still pays attention.

If elected officials see something in the news often enough, they will conclude that their constituents also care about it—otherwise, why so much coverage? 

Media reports can then spur the government to action, by doing things like offering to match donations by Canadians who want to respond to the disaster.

At a time when the media is trying to convince people about its importance, helping to save the lives of millions of people dying of hunger is a pretty good case to make.

For more on this topic, and the role media consumers play in the amount of media coverage we get, see When it Comes to Media Coverage of Drowned Refugees or Dead Gorillas, We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us.