(fixed) US newsman apologises for neglecting DRC

["Andrew Hagen" <xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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2504620K143765

US newsman apologises for neglecting DRC

New York - Few Americans know about the deaths of possibly up to 2,5
million
people in rebel-held eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over
the past three
years, and even fewer know why.

Prominent US television journalist Ted Koppel, who begins a five-part
series on the
war in the DRC on Friday, said journalists who failed to give the story
the attention it
deserves are to blame.

He starts the series with an extraordinary apology from his programme
and his
profession.

"These are events you should have heard about on Nightline years ago,"
Koppel says
in his introduction.

The series is a heartbreaking, harrowing start in shining a light
on the region's tragedy. After Friday, it continues next
Tuesday to Friday.

"How can two-and-a-half million people die over a three-year
period and we don't even notice?" Koppel asked in an
interview. "It's not as though we were looking at the story and
saying, 'It's far away, let's not bother.' It didn't even rise to that
level."

Contrast that to the attention given to the war in Kosovo, where an
estimated 20 000
people died, he said.

The New York-based International Rescue Committee estimated that 2,5m
people
have died in rebel-held eastern Congo during the war.

Congo is far away, is so inaccessible that Nightline had to shoot
scenes from the air
and, in many places, is too dangerous to visit. America has no obvious
strategic
interest and it's nearly impossible to identify good guys and bad guys,
he said.

Racism is also partly to blame for the inattention, with the
insidious sense that people expect this from Africa, he said.

Nightline shows the bones of gorillas and elephants killed for
food at a game preserve. As the cameras pan over valleys of
lush vegetation at the park, Koppel says: "We don't have a
pile of human bodies to show you. People are dying here in
the Congo at a rate of 2 500 a day and most of what we saw
looks like a damned picture postcard."

Not quite. Nightline shows haunting pictures of malnourished children,
and Koppel
interviews rape victims.

The conflict has coincided with a cutback by many US television
networks on news
from overseas, largely to save money. It's difficult to say whether the
networks are
reflecting a diminishing interest in international news among viewers,
or causing it.

Koppel's network, ABC, along with CBS, has been talking to rival CNN
about sharing
newsgathering costs.

ABC was supportive of his visit to Congo, Koppel said. "If we started
doing this every
week, would we hear rumbles? Probably yes. But we're not going to do
this every
week."

Still, Koppel and his team are out to convince viewers that
international news is not
boring. "I think that if you make the stories accessible, then
everybody cares, or
everybody can be induced to care." - Sapa-AP


Published on the Web by IOL on 2001-09-04 18:25:04