However, read the following paragraph:
An area that is already economically despondent is hit with a giant earthquake that kills between 50,000 and 100,000 residents and creates a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.
Sounds like the current situation in Haiti, right?
Well, it could also describe the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, a country very important to the American effort in Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror. Here is a snippet from a general report on that quake:
This was the deadliest earthquake in the recent history of the sub-continent resulting in more than eighty thousand casualties, two hundred thousand injured, and more than 4 million people who have been left homeless. The adverse effects of this earthquake are estimated to be larger than those of the tsunami of December 2004.As Pakistanis, Afghans and other residents of Kashmir and the surrounding area were left homeless through a brutal winter following the earthquake, American media kept finding more important stories, and the American people never seemed to rally to the cause.
That paragraph could also describe the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China, which affected a very rural swath of Chinese countryside and killed about 70,000 people, a large number of which were children who were attending school in shoddily built structures. A year after the attack, there were reports that millions were still homeless. But the American media let this story go quickly after it happened, reporting more about the effect on pandas than the gigantic effort to save people ruined by the quake.
Neither of these earthquakes and subsequent human misery prompted the outpouring of American support and media attention that the Haitian disaster is receiving. All the major national media outlets in the United States continue to lead with the Haiti story every day, while the American people continue to open their checkbooks and hearts for the Haitian people.
So why Haiti and not China or Pakistan?
I would say that it is simply a matter of "Close to home, close to heart". While the other two countries are way over in the Eastern Hemisphere, Haiti sits directly underneath the U.S., so American media could find it to be more important. As well, there is a large Haitian immigrant community. However, as I have discussed on my blog previously, most U.S. newspapers focus their international coverage on the Middle East and Asia, to the detriment of nearby countries and regions such as Mexico and South America. And there are more Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans in this country than Haitians. As well, with Pakistan's immense importance to the Global War on Terror, that country's 2005 crisis deserved as much attention as Haiti is receiving.
Maybe it's guilt. Haiti has faced economic and political problems for decades, as well as a string of deadly hurricanes. Meanwhile, the United States has continued to send Haitian immigrants back on their way when they attempt to seek refuge here while accepting lighter-skinned Cubans, supposedly because of Cuba's Communist government. Possibly now we are paying Haiti back for ignoring it all this time.
Truthfully, I have no idea why we, as Americans and as the media, ignored Pakistan and China yet are giving our full attention to Haiti. When I was a newspaper editor, I pushed for continuing coverage of the earthquakes, as I worked in an area (San Francisco) that was earthquake-prone with a large immigrant population. After just a couple days, my entreaties fell on deaf ears, as there was some new buzzy story, probably involving an Austrian man who kept his daughter in the basement or some minor happening in Iran, that came along to push it out of the way.
I am proud of the media and American public for focusing on this disaster and doing what they can to help. I just wish I didn't have to wonder why they don't do it every time.
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