NYT's Kristof Sounds Off on Darfur

Comment by Jay Cuasay
All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt - New York Times:

"The BBC has shown that outstanding television coverage of Darfur is possible. And, incredibly, mtvU (the MTV channel aimed at universities) has covered Darfur more seriously than any network or cable station. When MTV dispatches a crew to cover genocide and NBC doesn't, then we in journalism need to hang our heads."

There is something to be said about today's media making the world that much smaller, manageable, or communicable--and community oriented. It's ironic too that MJ, who helped push the anthem "We are the World" would end up distracting us from paying attention to genocide in Darfur or that "compassionate conservatism" and African aid, might not also be up to par with the kind of "shock and awe" we'd like to accomplish in our foreign policies.

I think because we can change channels, and because there are so many channels, and ways to get access to channels, the focus has moved to self-selection and media on demand. Less focus has been on content. What do we see or as Kristof argues, what (more) should we see?

We should be activist Couch Potatoes. Radical Channel flippers, rising up...The "whole world is watching" and that is not enough.