"IT TOLLS FOR THEE"

History may repeat itself, news does not

Old news is not only what happened years, months or weeks ago. Sadly, it is often what is similar to it. If one happens to read about ten migrants drowning in the Mediterranean, one may wonder why they bothered to report it at all. A hundred? Well, still more of the same. 500? Maybe. A thousand? Ah, now you're talking. Sometimes, powerful reporting may succeed in adding new pathos into the story. A photograph of a Syrian boy washed up on a Greek coast, an Ai Wei Wei take on the subject, an excellently written article... Even then, how long will the effect last?  The problem is, as Kohelet states, "There is nothing new under the sun." We have heard it all before, and so, we have become rather immune to it. The problem is that, though history may repeat itself, news does not. The ten people are different individuals in a different tragedy. So is the famine. So is the abuse.

Compassion Fatigue

Susan D. Moeller discussed this immunity to suffering in her 1999 book, Compassion Fatigue. The problems are not only the "been there, done that" attitude. There are others too. For instance, Hollywood.

A CBS producer who covered the War in Lebanon in the early 1980's observed, "You've got a TV audience that's used to war movies. Real explosions have to look almost as good. There's almost a boredom factor." If the news isn't up to Hollywood caliber, indifference can steal in.

News worthiness is another issue and this is linked with our sense of tribalism. As the Brooklyn Eagle had once put it: "A dogfight in Brooklyn is bigger than a revolution in China." We are more likely to care for people close to us in space (as well as time). Wars and disasters in distant lands are too remote to dwell upon much. Moeller's answer is twofold. The first is excellent journalism that brings the story to life without the need for sensationalism. The second is consistency in foreign reporting, as this will reduce the division between "us" and "them". Twenty years on, and perhaps we are we closer, thanks to the increasing influence of the Internet. Or at least could be more easily. But even if one does make an effort to keep informed, it is often through a barrage of headlines. These create a new form of aloofness.  

Yesterday's news is easily buried by today's news

Finally, news is buried so easily. Milan Kundera put it nicely in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

"The bloody massacre in Bangladesh quickly covered over the memory of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia, the assassination of Allende drowned out the groans of Bangladesh, the war in the Sinai Desert made people forget Allende, the Cambodian massacre made people forget Sinai and so on and so forth, until ultimately everyone lets everything be forgotten."

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

My answer is different. Yes, sound journalism and more international news coverage is important. However, I believe that we, as readers, have to take more responsibility. It is up to us as individuals to keep the stories that matter alive. Not simply for an emotional fix. Rather, we need to feed our sense of outrage so that we are spurred to do something about the evil and injustice that plagues the world. For indeed, most of our problems are man-made. We must make it our moral duty to remember, and our duty to act for a brighter and fairer future; in any way we can.  

"Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."