Reporting Disasters: Famine, Aid, Politics and the MediaThe media reporting of the Ethiopian Famine in 1984-5 was an iconic news event. It is widely believed to have had an unprecedented impact, challenging perceptions of Africa and mobilising public opinion and philanthropic action in a dramatic new way. The contemporary international configuration of aid, media pressure, and official policy is still directly affected and sometimes distorted by what was--as this narrative shows--also an inaccurate and misleading story. In popular memory, the reporting of Ethiopia and the resulting humanitarian intervention were a great success. Yet alternative interpretations give a radically different picture of misleading journalism and an aid effort which did more harm than good. Using privileged access to BBC and Government archives, Reporting Disasters examines and reveals the internal factors which drove BBC news and offers a rare case study of how the media can affect public opinion and policymaking. It constructs the process that accounts for the immensity of the news event, following the response at the heart of government to the pressure of public opinion. And it shows that while the reporting and the altruistic festival that it produced triggered remarkable and identifiable changes, the on-going impact was not what the conventional account claims it to have been. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 How Famine Captured the Headlines | 11 |
National Response | 41 |
3 A Revolution in Giving | 71 |
Telling the Story Wrong | 89 |
5 The Humanitarian Dilemma | 113 |
6 Too Tight an Embrace? The Agencies and the Media | 133 |
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Addis Ababa aid agencies Alex de Waal audience Band Aid BBC WAC BBC1 became Biafran Bob Geldof Brian Barder British broadcast causes charities Chris Cramer Christian Aid CNN effect countries crises crisis crucial current affairs Dawit Wolde Giorgis December director discussion donations donors dramatic drought Emergency Appeals Ethio Ethiopian famine Ethiopian government event example famine in Ethiopia film foreign fundraising funds Global government’s humanitarian Hunger images impact Interview involved issue Jonathan Dimbleby journalists Korem later Live Aid London long-term Médecins Sans Frontières media coverage memo Mengistu ment Michael Buerk million minister natural disaster NGOs November observed October official Oxfam political problem programme public opinion raised rebel refugee regime resettlement response role Ron Neil Save the Children scale secretary Six O’Clock starvation starving story sudden Suzanne Franks television Tigray Timothy Raison tion Tony Vaux victims Western World Vision