Famine and Media Talk

Jonathan Beatty

World Politics 001H

Professor Craig

Date: 4 December 2011

Extra Credit Paper 2: Famine in the Media and the Politics of Representation

On November 30^th, I attended an event in the SIS Founders Room about Famine and media coverage of the famine in Africa. The panelists were Halima Barqadle, Christopher Hillbruner, Professor Caty Borum Chattoo, and Professor Rebecca DeWinter. The event was sponsored by the SIS Global Environmental Politics Program, Eco-Sense, and the Student Organization for African Studies.

Halima Barqadle is from the American Refugee Committee and spent time volunteering in the famine-affected part of Africa of Somalia as a nurse in a children’s hospital. Christopher Hillbruner is a decision and planning advisor at FEWS Net in Asia and Africa. Professor Caty Borum Chattoo is a professor at American University in the School of Communication. Professor Rebecca DeWinter is an associate professor and a formal Post-Doctoral scholar both in the School of International Service.

The focus of this event was to explore the truth about the current famine in Africa as well as providing an understanding of the media coverage of the famine. The event started with the bachelor and doctoral students who organized the event running through a Power Point of the different types of media.

First, they defined what media was using the definition, “the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely.” This framed the discussion. The students then delved into the four types of media: Self-Generated media, Digital Media, Corporate Media, and Independent Media.

Self-Generated Media is media used to generate attention directly and to generate media coverage. Many examples of self-generated media were mentioned, including Mercy Corps, the Oxfam Grow Campaign, the United Nations Food Programme Program, FEWS Net, and the USAID Fwd campaign. A common feature of some of these campaigns is the use of celebrities in the campaigns to increase coverage of the issue. This is prominent in the USAID Fwd campaign and the ONE campaign. The African Refugee Committee, the organization Halima Barqadle works with, has an “I am a Star” campaign which uses self-generated media to increase awareness of the African famine.

Digital Media was defined as the use of social networks and blogs to increase attention for a cause. Hashtags on twitter are often used to bring attention to the famine in Africa. Hashtags that have been used for this purpose are “#HornofAfrica” and “#famine”. The presenters then showed a blog by Barry Malone titled, “Me and the Man with the iPad.” The blog described the author’s travels in famine Africa. There also was a quote from his blog when he was describing taking pictures of the starving people: “Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for holding up your dying baby for my camera. And thank you for your dignity. Thank you for giving it to me. Thank you for letting me have it.” This quote sums up the devastation occurring in Africa.

The presenters then moved onto Corporate Media, which are the New York Times and Washington Posts of the world. There was an emphasis that even though this form of media is the most powerful, it barely touches the surface on covering the famine issue in Africa. Another form of corporate media is Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN documentaries from Africa. On Fox, there also was coverage on the famine by Minay Mizell called “Fighting Famine in East Africa.” So, even though the depth of reporting is not satisfactory, there is coverage of the issue in the news.

The last type of media they talked about was Independent Media. There was not a lot of coverage on this type of media at this point in the presentation. They mentioned that this type of media is usually funded by non-profits and charities such as the Gates Foundation. This type of media is usually where the in-depth reporting takes place.

After the presentation was done, the first speaker began, Halima Barqadle who I previously mentioned was from the African Refugee Committee. She first gave some statistics on the famine in Africa:

· 2.5 Million are in need of healthcare, education, and food in Somalia

· In Somalia alone, there are 4 million at risk of famine

· Worldwide, 12 million are in need of aid for famine-related problems

The African Refugee Committee works in nine countries in Africa. Halima worked at a hospital in Somalia in the Mogadishu area as a nurse. She stated that the majority of people she met were internally displaced people in Somalia. The hospital where she worked saw over 100 patients daily with over 300 in the pediatric ward alone. The most common diseases she saw were measles, acute diarrhea, malnutrition, and malaria. Resources were few at the hospital; because of this the medical professionals at the hospitals have to turn away people from the hospital if their conditions were not as serious as other patients. The only screening processes they used were height and weight. She stated one of the biggest issues with the healthcare system in Somalia was the educational gap between physicians and nurses. Because Somalia essentially has not had a government for 20 years, there has not been a solid educational system. Nurses have outdated information and procedures. She then went into a story about two pregnant women and their birthing experiences. One was a 16-year-old girl in septic shock and a 40-year-old woman, old by Somalian standards, who was hemorrhaging. The 16-year-old had not had any antibiotics and there was no blood-distribution system at the hospital. Halima did not have the correct solutions to give to the women to save them so she had to beg the pharmacy for them. Then the nurse who had limited training put the 40-year-old woman on the correct solution but she put the 16-year-old on the wrong solution twice. Because of the hemorrhaging, the 40-year-old woman’s baby was stillborn even with being on the correct solution. In the case of the 16-year-old girl’s baby, the baby was alive for a few hours and died and the mother died from complications from the birth. Halima then went on to describe other conditions in the hospital such as no gloves and how there was only a few oxygen machines in the ICU. Even with all of these negatives, she saw hope in Somalia when she saw children playing on the beach.

The next speaker was Christopher Hillbruner from FEWS Net. Fews Net is a USA-funded activity started in 1985. FEWS Net responds to famine in Africa, Asia, and South America. FEWS Net works in 31 countries and puts out reports on food security in countries they work in with an aim to stop famine. The process for FEWS Net is that the United Nations makes a formal declaration about famine in a country, but FEWS Net makes the final decision as to the status of the nation. He then talked about the media coverage of the famine. He stated that the media did a bad job covering the famine. There were indications of a famine as early as summer 2010 but it was not formally declared until July 2011. Because the level of advocacy was low in the famine-affected area of Africa, they subsequently received little media coverage. Christopher then went on to talk about Niger. Niger, with a large network of NGO’s, receives quick responses to tragedies because the NGO’s can create enough noise for news networks to listen. He also stated another common issue he sees is the tendency of people to believe everything that they are told by people involved in humanitarian agencies because he says not everyone in these organizations have good motives. Another thing that concerns him with the famine and reporting on the famine is fatigue setting in on reporting on the famine. He said a reporter once said in response to a request to report on the famine, “Why do I want to write a story on another drought in Africa.” Another example of poor media coverage of the famine was that the famine did not make the front page of the New York Times for weeks after the declaration of the famine. He then stated how every new disaster is the “worst” yet and how that is troubling because it doesn’t provide an accurate representation of each new issue.

After Christopher Hillbruner finished, Professor Caty Borum Chattoo, from the School of Communication, spoke on the different types of media. She has been involved in independent media in the form of a documentary series through Link.tv, a non-profit independent news organization funded through the Gates Foundation. The documentary series is 5 half-hour specials in conjunction with Oxfam’s internal storytelling team. The specials were produced in conjunction with World Food Day. After speaking on her travels in Africa working on one of these specials, she spoke on the issues of true in-depth reporting disappearing and organizations funding reporters independently to continue this form of reporting. An example of this is a Neiman Fellow, funded by the Neiman Foundation, who does in-depth reporting on various world issues. She echoed Mr. Hillbruner’s point of little media coverage of the famine. She said through research conducted by her research assistant and herself that she had found out there were no stories on the famine from September through November, the height of the narrative of the famine. In addition to this troubling point, she also said that on World Food Day there were no stories on the African famine, even after sending her half-hour special on the famine. One high point she saw on World Food Day was that YouTube dedicated their front page to famine with links to various news stories and documentaries, including hers.

The last to speak was Professor Rebecca DeWinter from the School of International Service who helped put the large amount of information into perspective for those in attendance. She spoke on framing the information. A frame is a basis as to how we think of the world and influences us. These ideas are expressed though metaphors and narratives which condenses the information. These frames rely on stereotypes, built on existing cultural associations. She also helped the audience put the famine in perspective by showing us that we would see the various actors involved as victims, heroes, and villains.

I found this event to be extremely eye-opening. I had heard about the famine in Africa, but I had not known the situation was a bad as was presented. This was probably because of the issues with the reporting shown throughout the presentation. I’m glad I went to such an interesting event!