Saturday, November 29, 2008

Hundreds Feared Dead in Riots in Nigeria - NYTimes.com

I hope that this story will merit equal attention to that given to the tragedy in Mumbai. Why shouldn't it? If, indeed, 300 people turn out to be dead in Nigeria, is that not worth twice the coverage given to 170 murdered in Mumbai?

If this does not get the same attention, we have a lot of questions to ask ourselves about news judgments, news priorities, technology, and strategic interests.

At the end of the day, it is horrific when anyone dies in any of these incidents and as human beings we are obliged to divide our attention span - whether measured in minutes or nanoseconds among all of them.

Each death is exactly equal to every other death whether the person carries an Indian, Nigerian or, yes, even a US passport.

If anything less than equality, we all bear and bare the shame.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good post. I've been asking the same questions. It's amazing to me that while the Mumbai tragedy has been garnering nonstop coverage (as it should), I haven't heard hardly anything about Nigeria. I think you're right that it indicates very warped priorities.