Ari Berman: Downplaying Darfur

According to the American Journalism Review, last year the three major networks devoted five times as much coverage to Martha Stewart as to the genocide in Sudan. The world's worst humanitarian crisis prompted an abysmal 18 minutes of fame. While the BBC reports from Darfur almost daily, renowned CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour had to beg her bosses to let her go. "If few editors could find Rwanda on a map 10 years ago," wrote Carroll Bogert of Human Rights Watch, "Fewer still have found Darfur today."

Newspapers, with a few exceptions (The New York Times, Washington Post, Knight-Ridder), have hardly been better. "Many of the stories on Sudan published in the nation's newspapers tended to be 500 words or less, giving short shrift to a complex conflict with powerful ethnic, religious and economic factors," writes AJR's Sherry Ricchiardi. "Many accounts lacked historical context or perspective, often oversimplifying the bloodshed in Darfur. And few of them appeared on the front page." Laci Peterson made the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle 36 times in 2004, wrote the newspaper's ombudsman, Dick Rogers. Darfur graced the cover thrice.
(The Nation)