Ethiopia: New Book Examines Legacy of Media Coverage of Ethiopia's 1984 Famine
book review
It is almost 30 years since a single TV news report alerted the world to a massive humanitarian emergency unfolding in Ethiopia.
"Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine, now, in the 20th century. This place, say workers here, is the closest thing to hell on earth," the piece began.
Accompanied by shots of thousands of starving people arriving at feeding stations in northern Ethiopia, the report by the BBC's Michael Buerk triggered an outpouring of donations and one of the biggest humanitarian efforts the world had ever seen.
It spawned Live Aid, the concert organised by pop star Bob Geldof, and heralded an era of celebrity do good-ism, which is now practically inescapable. It also led to the unprecedented growth of foreign relief organisations, changed the face of NGO fundraising and helped cement Africa's image as a continent of plagues, pestilence and suffering that continues until today.
In the minds of many, the reporting of the famine and the subsequent humanitarian effort were a huge success. Yet, a new book by former BBC journalist-turned-academic Suzanne Franks shows the opposite to be true.
"Reporting disasters: Famine, aid, politics and the media" takes a comprehensive look at the iconic news event. Mining BBC and government archives, it concludes that media coverage of the crisis was misleading and inaccurate, and that the aid effort ultimately did more harm than good.
"What made it really interesting ... is that many people have wonderful intentions but ... despite these good intentions, there are terrible outcomes," Franks told Thomson Reuters Foundation. "That is very difficult to understand."
Although few would deny the power of Buerk's report and the profound impact it had, Franks' research dispels any notion that media coverage of the famine had any lasting effect on British policy towards Ethiopia, considered by London and Washington to be a "distasteful regime" and a client of the Soviet Union.
In reality, hardly any new money was provided by then prime minister Margaret Thatcher's government largely because, as Franks points out, Thatcher's attitude to aid was said to mirror on a global scale her suspicion of the welfare state at home.
"Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine, now, in the 20th century. This place, say workers here, is the closest thing to hell on earth," the piece began.
Accompanied by shots of thousands of starving people arriving at feeding stations in northern Ethiopia, the report by the BBC's Michael Buerk triggered an outpouring of donations and one of the biggest humanitarian efforts the world had ever seen.
It spawned Live Aid, the concert organised by pop star Bob Geldof, and heralded an era of celebrity do good-ism, which is now practically inescapable. It also led to the unprecedented growth of foreign relief organisations, changed the face of NGO fundraising and helped cement Africa's image as a continent of plagues, pestilence and suffering that continues until today.
In the minds of many, the reporting of the famine and the subsequent humanitarian effort were a huge success. Yet, a new book by former BBC journalist-turned-academic Suzanne Franks shows the opposite to be true.
"Reporting disasters: Famine, aid, politics and the media" takes a comprehensive look at the iconic news event. Mining BBC and government archives, it concludes that media coverage of the crisis was misleading and inaccurate, and that the aid effort ultimately did more harm than good.
"What made it really interesting ... is that many people have wonderful intentions but ... despite these good intentions, there are terrible outcomes," Franks told Thomson Reuters Foundation. "That is very difficult to understand."
Although few would deny the power of Buerk's report and the profound impact it had, Franks' research dispels any notion that media coverage of the famine had any lasting effect on British policy towards Ethiopia, considered by London and Washington to be a "distasteful regime" and a client of the Soviet Union.
In reality, hardly any new money was provided by then prime minister Margaret Thatcher's government largely because, as Franks points out, Thatcher's attitude to aid was said to mirror on a global scale her suspicion of the welfare state at home.
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