Haiti: As Big Media Pulls Out, Stories Still Need Telling

There's been a great deal of concern over mainstream media's coverage of the recent earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath. From the blogosphere, to the alternative news circuits, to the average kitchen table, many folks were asking difficult questions about what was and wasn't showing up in television and radio broadcasts and in newspaper spreads.

"Racism", "sensationalism", and even "staging" quickly became a part of those discussions.

I wrote a rant - okay, two rants - not long ago about the treatment of Haitians in the press - and failures of the mainstream press in accurately covering the many sides and contributing factors of the story. I was one small voice in a very loud chorus - and if I weren't, I'd still stand by said rants.

Nevertheless, a lot of us were disappointed when the New York Times reported yesterday that many large, highly resourced news services and corporations were "Pulling Out" of Haiti - even though we already knew the deal.

Why? Because loathing the methods of newsgathering in much of the media is like hating the postal service in your neighborhood.

The service is crappy most of the time - and you wish the employees were still wearing appropriate uniforms - but you still can't help but depend on it.

Sure, we understand the nature of the news (and advertisers) these days - and we understand the nature of consumers. News networks can't necessarily afford to take up further residence in Haiti. We get the advertising dollars model. We comprehend viewer burnout.

But many of us also understand that as newspapers, radio services, and television network programs continue to consolidate, shrink, and cut corners, pulling out really means pulling out. Even 20 years ago, we could depend on regional and international reporters, or at least stringers, who could keep us abreast of notable stories around the world. Those days are largely gone.

Concerned Americans looking for news, analysis, and commentary have to work harder and harder to access it - it's become an elite exercise for bloggers, academics, and those who have the time to find a BBC or AP wire story and a world map.

Always, and certainly right this minute, that's a problem, because we need some big eyes and ears in Haiti - even those that don't see or hear so well.

Under-resourced activists, educators, writers, bloggers, and citizens sitting in their offices in, say, Durham, still depend on the "big" news. We watch/read/listen to it, and then we turn around and talk behind its back. Of course, big news operations are also watching the influential bloggers and alternative journalists - and demonstrating the same snarky behavior (some in new, sparkly blog posts).

That's what frenemies do. And when it works, it works.

Michel Martin spoke to this relationship yesterday in her commentary titled "Why We Hate (And Thank) The Media In Times of Disaster" on Tell Me More. She offered a sharp rebuttal to those hatin' on the "MSM" - Mainstream Media.

"Some of the first people in have been who?" she asked. "Reporters - working for the biggest news outlets. They are the ones who are there, often before virtually any representative of government was there..."

"I have to say it annoys me when I get these smug posts from the bloggers and activists who are all promising to go in 'after the cameras leave' and 'stay after the cameras have gone'. I ask these people, if the cameras and microphones weren't there, would you be going at all?".

She makes a solid point - she's Michel Martin, after all (Much respec'. You can hear the entire commentary below - and I highly recommend Tell Me More).



But at the end of the day, I have to argue that it wouldn't matter to me if those telling the story were mainstream journalists, underground reporters, or intrepid bloggers, so long as the stories got the attention they deserved. Storytellers are important, but the power and reach of the platform, unfortunately, are still the biggest factors in whether the word gets out.

I appreciate Ms. Martin's inquiry, but I think folks like me are asking another, more troubling question:

Two weeks-months-years from now, when hundreds of thousands of children are still vulnerable to suffering from injuries, hunger, grief, and loneliness, who will bear witness loud enough to be heard?

Who will spur us to humanity, and compassion, and action (and yes, perhaps, to more angry blog rants)?

*Image Credits: Associated Press. Earthquake Survivor Camp
J.J. Guillén/European Pressphoto Agency. Journalists at camp in Port-au-Prince

Haiti's Aftershock: The Media, "Looting", and the Crime of Bad Journalism

When news of this morning's aftershock in Haiti - which measured 6.1 on the Richter scale - broke this morning, hearts around the world sank. It happened at around 6AM, EST, when many folks were encamped for the night in streets , on park lawns, and wherever else they could rest. Many of us know that, "aftershock" or not, 6.1 is deadly magnitude, much more significant than a mere tremor. It's easy to imagine that another quake - like the one that struck today - is the worst nightmare of those who survived last week's monstrous event, to which at least 200,000 women, children, and men are said to have lost their lives.

In the early hours of the morning, some frightened survivors reportedly took to the street seeking safety, answers, and resources.

To put it mildly - it's disheartening when so many news organizations take this opportunity to focus on the "looting" and "lawlessness" emerging in specific parts of the country after Haitians who have been more than patient have been under-served and "under-relieved" in large part because of the militaristic, racist approach that seems dominant and rampant.



Gee, I'm not sure what folks are expected to do when staring death in the face. I suppose that the lawful, responsible thing to do would be to let your family die while you wait for the ever-elusive aid buggy. I mean, are these the same reporters who failed to report on the rape of resources and infrastructure in Haiti in recent years (decades)? Did they miss all of that "looting and lawlessness"?

Or do "looting" and "lawlessness" only come in certain pocketbook sizes and colors?

Smells a lot like Hurricane Katrina coverage - not that this is news. Maybe it smells worse, as some folks are arguing that even CNN star Anderson Cooper can't get it together. What's going on?

Not to beat a dead Fourth Estate or anything, but are these some of the same trifling reporters who haven't filed one sorry enterprise story on the history and legacy of Haiti - it's struggles, triumphs, battles with foreign powers, and internal strife?

Let me be clear. I'm not hating on journalists. I've done the newsroom thing. Truly, there's a lot of love here.

We all understand that, realistically, there will always be groups of people - including gangs, police forces, and governments - who take advantage of chaos to enrich themselves. The biggest victims of these actions are always the weakest in the society - children, elders, pregnant women, the disabled. But there certainly is a difference between criminal activity and the actions of any sane person in a dire situation hoping to secure food, water, and needed supplies.

Unfortunately, you'd think some reporters don't know the difference, to let the reporting tell it. I'm still wondering how it is that the same outlets who haven't managed to report on humanitarian aid failure suddenly have so much time, tape and copy to spend on violent, chaotic looting pieces. And many who did manage (bother) to get some coverage on the issue of increasing desperation and relief/aid challenges as recently as a few days ago missed the point (and the messaging).

You don't have to be a Haitian, an aid worker, or a journalist to understand the glaring undertones of statements about "security", "certain elements", and "these kinds of people" in answer to questions about the slow dissemination of assistance to Port-Au-Prince, Jacmel, and throughout the countryside.

You don't have to be a Person of Color to get it, either. So let's not pretend.

Funny: Folks in the news industry - particularly those in print - spend a lot of time trying to figure out why their readership is down.

Could it be that folks are looking for reporting that

• gets to the heart of the matter?
• avoids the trite rehashing of racist/sexist/classist stereotypes?
• employs folks with just a little bit of cultural awareness (and maybe even a few folks of Color)?
• actually provides a little bit of context?

Is it possible that readers keep checking out because the press keeps getting it wrong?

"No, that can't be right. We couldn't possibly be the problem. Maybe we oughtta just blame the internet."

Photo Credit: Ariana Cublios, AP

Haiti: What We Should Know Now (but aren't being told by mainstream media)

For many, the earth is still shaking.

Sites like 99Problems.org have posted the videos and images that continue to tell the harrowing story of the earthquake that hit Haiti late yesterday afternoon.

Tragic facts continued to emerge throughout the night, as aftershocks and news of death and destruction rocked Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas. Hundreds have been confirmed dead, but there are many still trapped in the debris of buildings that collapsed around the area.

Unfortunately, as demonstrated by blogger Allison Kilkenny, the press hasn't done a stellar job of providing historical context about the small island nation. That's problematic, because there is a great deal of work to be done there. Because the history of slavery is so denied and ignored in our culture, many Americans don't even understand how the African-descended population in Haiti (and throughout the Caribbean and South America, for that matter) came to be there.

Journalists are presenting the rehashed story of a hapless, poor black nation that audiences are so familiar with.

Few, however, have mentioned Haiti's history as the first independent black nation established in the western hemisphere after a bloody but successful revolt of enslaved Africans against their French slaveholders. The leadership of Toussaint L'Ouveture and the work other warrior strategists in the late 1700s led to the establishment of the nation in 1804, about 60 years before slavery was abolished in the United States.

That made Haiti a target not just for jilted France, but for the wealthy United States, whose leaders chaffed at the possibility of a free black nation so near the American south. In fact, they had good reason to worry.

There were indeed enslaved and free blacks who escaped or relocated to Haiti. There were also enslaved Africans who were forced to travel with white owners escaping the revolt, and ended up in places such as Mississippi and Louisiana's Orleans Territory. Finally, there were aristocratic blacks - often of mixed ancestry and with ties to French slaveholders - who were identified as the enemy of the enslaved blacks. Many in this group also fled to free states in United States (See Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, for example.)

All of the cross-pollination could be dangerous for the U.S. economy, which relied almost entirely on the boons slave labor - whether it was admitted or not.

(Let's not be fooled by the early abolition dates or the so-called liberal politics in states like Massachusetts. The lucrative textile industry, for example, was built on the backs of enslaved men and women who planted, cultivated, and harvested the cotton that fueled it.)

The Haitian Revolution helped to inspire a number of revolts and movements among enslaved and free blacks in the U.S. Charles Deslondes, the enslaved African man (often falsely identified as a free) who led a "slave" revolt in January of 1811, was born in Haiti, and had come to Louisiana as the human "property" of his white slaveholder, a white refugee who had escaped to Louisiana. Black Nationalists such as David Walker, author of the militant Appeal...to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829), were directly inspired by it. The uprising became the center of celebrations and commemorations - sometimes secret - among blacks in both the American south and north for decades to come.

Even in 2009, Haiti would represent an extraordinary political threat if it were flourishing. It's no wonder the United States and France have had their foot on Haiti's neck - militarily, economically, and politically - since 1804.

Yes, we've have a lot of multi-government sponsored humanitarian presence in Haiti in recent decades, but you don't have to suffer through (the not-so-subtly-racist-condescending-heavy-handed-liberal-fantasy freakfest known as) Avatar to sniff out the potential rats there. One could step back a little further, and read about our military history in Haiti since.

A quick review really aids an understanding of why Haiti is the poorest country in the Northern hemisphere, and why it has long been the anchor of the dirty corporate practices of child labor-exploitative companies like Disney (and those that have followed). It will also clear up some questions about our actions in Grenada back in the 1980s - don't get me started.

(I'd really, really, like to talk about disgusting ironies related to Disney's "The Princess and the Frog" here, but you'd all think I'd taken a complete left.)

Add to that a discussion of the myriad internal challenges, not limited to the country's environmental vulnerability (a product of Haiti's rampant deforestation) along with serious class stratification, and we might truly have a better handle on things.

But information is only useful if we do something with it. And there's a great deal to be done.

Images Credit: Associated Press. Second image is a "before and after" of Haiti's Presidential Palace.

The Real Michelle Obama & The Media Gaze

Michelle Obama's appearance on last night's Larry King Live made me wonder.

Are folks still more interested in Michelle Obama than they are in Cindy McCain, or even Joe Biden?

Michelle certainly has captured the public imagination with her poise, her grace, her obvious devotion to her husband and, a key element American public life is nearly void of , "realness"

In her interviews, she's passionate, thoughtful, and authentic. Does she know the Obama talking points? Yes.

But she also knows herself and her thoughts well enough to speak from the position of a player at the table, not that of an automaton in knit suit and heels.

You get the sense that she's, well, real.

She's the type of woman the country wants to know. In fact, we haven't known some past First Ladies as well as we already know Michelle Obama. Now she's being chronicled in two forthcoming biographies, Liza Mundy's Michelle: A Biography and Elizabeth Lightfoot's Michelle Obama: Grace and Intelligence in a Time of Change (the thoroughness of the latter's research has been questioned).

This week, she's been the subject of a Washington Post article by Mundy and an interview with the same journalist for NPR. And she's a constant fixture on the blogosphere.

But maybe this is part of a larger trend.

In any Presidential election, the candidate's spouse plays is a critical role. But according to some recent media theories, Americans are coming to expect more and more from a President's other half.

Gone are the days when folks analyzed only the potential first lady's outfit and her choice of jewelry, they argue. Today, folks are looking for a Presidential team - from the candidate, to the spouse, to the VeeP pick - and the credentials of each player are on the table.

(Of course, we then also want "the tea" on the potential First Lady's outfit and a run down on precious stones or semi precious stones versus pearls.)

All of that may be so, but no one can convince me that anyone is half as interested in Cindy McCain as they are in Michelle Obama.

Sure, folks have made a bit of a math game of appraising the amount of bling and designer clothing she manages to jam on for each event. This despite the fact that her demonstration of such wealth may be somewhat inappropriate given the current economic crisis.

But that's about where it ends.

Besides the bling, her status as a mega-rich philanthropic heiress, and her shady real-estate connection to the Keating 5 scandal, there isn't much to talk about. Except for that time in the 1990s when she pimped a medical charity to fuel her prescription drug habit.

And well, there is also the fact that she had a documented affair with John McCain, then a married man, while his first wife lay at home recuperating from injuries she'd sustained in brutal car accident while hoping anxiously for her POW husband's return from Vietnam.

Come to think of it, journalists really should be doing a little bit more digging into Cindy McCain, her character, and her history than they have.

But can you blame them? (Of course you can; that's the job of the press)

She just isn't as compelling as Michelle Obama.

(And she doesn't have her fabulous, thick hair. Or the ability to do so much with a dress she scooped at the GAP....or White House/Black Market.)

And as for Joe Biden - Despite his many years in the senate, his charismatic personality, and his unavoidable tendency to lodge his foot in his mouth, I'm guessing he doesn't bring in the ratings or sell the papers the way Michelle does.

Perhaps we can get away with that this go-round. We got to know Biden pretty well during his time in the primaries, and he's been in the public eye long enough to provide us with a thorough track record.

And let's face it - no matter his past - he just can't sling racially tinged, hateful phrases the way that his rabid Republican counterpart can, so no one's listening to him anyway.

And of course, there are very good reasons to get to know Michelle - she's her husband's closest adviser. Before Biden or any of the 300 folks Sen. Obama checks in with, it's Michelle's counsel that could tell us the most about what an Obama presidency would look like.

Michelle Obama's drive has taken her from a solid base in black, working-class, Southside Chicago to the towers of Princeton and Harvard. She's worked in corporate America, public service, in the halls of academia, and in the halls of local government. She's raising two children and supporting her husband's run for the Presidency of the United States. She's faced an icy press, survived, and with media savvy and a compelling speech, turned the tide.

That kind of experience speaks to her strength, her motivations, and her character.

And now that she's won many folks over - that fact is a great plus for Barack Obama's candidacy. She's made quite an impact, according to Time Magazine's Curtis Sittenfield:

"...I've encountered more people who, if anything, seem more infatuated by Michelle than by her husband — including the white woman I know who bought her first-ever issue of Ebony magazine because Michelle was on the cover, and the cameraman I met in Denver who finagled a fist bump with Michelle and then proclaimed that he would never wash his hands again. He assured me he was usually jaded in these kinds of situations, but Michelle was the second coming of Jackie O.!"

And the Barack/Michelle chemistry can be viewed as a very welcome change, say the Huffington Post's Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks:

"...Michelle and Barack do something we've never seen before in a presidential couple: they actually look directly at each other when they're speaking to each other. They also laugh at each other's humor, and they allow their sexual attraction for each other to be visible...They're real."

There's that word again.

So yes, maybe the country is more interested in what Michelle Obama has to say.

The media seems to think so, and this blogger is betting that public interest is prophetic.

Clearly, that doesn't let the press of the hook in terms of it's responsibility to the public - we shouldn't allow strangers to vie for the highest posts in our nation. Yet depending upon where you're sitting, this golden media gaze seems to be working out well.

That's good for Barack Obama's campaign. It's good for many in the country who could use an education on the diversity of black women.

And it's good for America. How else are we going to get to know our next first lady?