Zuruf Basher: The Influence of the Modern Media

    In my opinion, it is not what the modern media is covering that is influencing our lives, rather it is what the media is not covering that is having the largest impact. The modern media must compete for our attention and does not cover many happenings outside of America. The coverage of Rwandan genocide, the Bosnia conflict and now the Sudanese genocide in Darfur and the fighting in Eastern Congo have had to compete with the celebrities on the television.

The Rwandan genocide lasted only 100 days, but 1,000,000 people died and many of my friends have no idea that this occurred. In Sudan, 15,000 people die every month and millions are displaced in refugee camps and throughout Western Europe and America. The stories outside of America include the children who have to work and help feed their families and cannot go to school, or the 1.1 billion people who have no access to clean drinking water and the 2.2 million people, 90% of which are children, dying each year because of diseases like dysentery that could be easily treated in America. 15,000,000 are dying of hunger in Africa alone and the entire continent is suffering from HIV/AIDS, creating millions of orphans who make up the majority of all my sad statistics.

The media does not want to show us the human suffering caused by war and the coffins returning home. The media does not want to cover the happy stories in Iraq either like the schools that are returning to normal or the kids playing soccer on the new fields we have paid for and built with our hands. We see instead celebrities like Brittany Spears or other rich people and the stuff they are buying, or we are seeing people chasing and taking pictures of what the celebrities are doing instead of chasing down real stories that need to be told.

Why must we see what is happening outside of America? This is a bad thing because if the media is not informing people about what is happening in other parts of the world, we would be isolated and would be uninformed about the world. For example, if the media does not focus on genocide, how can we stop the genocide? How can we help Darfur and its people if we cannot find Darfur on a map or understand the culture of its people? The media needs to understand that there is a generation of students being influenced by what they do not show us. Without the news from around the world, we, the young people of America, will be unable to connect with the countries of the world to do business or create partnerships in the future. 

Sadly, many of the problems that exist in the world are worsened because of corruption, greed and mistrust between ethnic or religious groups who refuse to work with others. The media can be a powerful tool to expose the corruption and mistreatment of people.

For example, reports from refugees displaced in certain camps in Africa, where host African peoples were placed in charge of handing out the food to the different zones, describe that these individuals were known to hand out supplies and food only after they had taken items that they wanted first, leaving less for everyone else. Only on the days when American or European visitors came to the camp, would these people give out the proper supplies and food. This means that they knew the Americans were watching and that they had to share the proper amount and if there was no one to watch them, the corruption would return.

Similarly, I think the leaders who wish to keep power only for themselves or only share food or medicine with their ethnic group would be less likely to do so if these cruel leaders knew the world and media were watching and that they could not get away with it.

In conclusion, the media is a powerful source of world democracy because people will be informed to make decisions and interact with one another. It will help keep the governments of the world from being corrupt because the world will be watching. Thank you and good night.