Famine coverage far too late
By Shelley Ball
Editor In Chief
The popular adage about bad news traveling
fast was disproved by Western news media
recently with its coverage of the massive famine
spreading across Africa.
According to a recent report by Newsweek
magazine, the earliest warnings of this disaster
were made known two years ago, yet little at­
tention was paid to the inevitable doom by
Western news media until a month ago, when a
British Broadcasting Corp, film enlightened
people around the world by depicting the blight
of Africa’s nations.
The tragedy has since been receiving top
coverage by the American media and no doùbt
other countries as well.This coverage has in
turn helped to spur a surge of contributions for
the starving in Africa.
I wonder, however, whether the African
famine situation would be as dire as it is now
had the media picked up on and reported the
tragedy much sooner. ABC News recently
reported that despite the great influx of 'con­
tributions (the United States alone is spending
$100 million in support), the aid is not even
beginning to make a dent in the hunger pro­
blem.
As it stands now, Newsweek reports this
famine, considered the worst in African
history, is responsible for killing as many as
200,000 people in the country of Mozambique
and at lease 300,000 in Ethiopia.
Other countries, such as Mali, Niger, Sudan
and Mauritania are-on the verge of a famine
similar to the epidemic levels reached in
Ethiopia, Mozambique and Chad. A total of
about 30 African countries are officially listed
as hungry.
It’s difficult to say whether people would
have sent in contributions similar to what is be­
ing sent in now had they been informed of the
threat of famine earlier. Many people no doubt
needed the shock of seeing Africans die before
their eyes on television before acting on their
behalf. But the media didn’t think the situation
in Africa was important enough to cover until
the conditions there became deplorable.
Newsweek reports Western relief organizations
kept alerting the news media of the disaster
with press releases, phone calls, photos, even
filmed footage of it in progress for months, all
to no avail.
The media didn’t completely ignore the
famine situation, though. The New York Times
and some other major newspapers were
reported to have run stories on the famine last
summer and the disaster did receive more
coverage in Europe. America’s news media has
its hands full covering what is going on in its
own backyard, so it could be understandable
that it can’t spare enough time to cover pro­
blems as remote as an African famine until the
event itself demands attention.
It should also be noted that the Ethiopian
government was reported to have refused
foreign journalists into its borders prior to its
anniversary celebration of the ouster of Haile
Selassie.
But Ethiopia was not the only country suffer­
ing from a famine, and even when American
free-lance journalist Gayle Small was able to
enter Ethiopia and report what was going on,
she said news agencies wouldn’t buy her
stories. Newsweek quotes her as saying, “What
people are dying of now is as much interna­
tional silence as a food shortage.”
Every good journalist knows it’s just as im­
portant to report events while they are in pro­
gress as well as when they have taken place.
And no matter how insignificant Ethiopia and
other Africa countries may appear to us
Westerners, it seems to me the onset of the
worst famine in African history, a famine that
has already claimed hundreds of thousands of
lives, is surely important enough for the media
to inform the public of as soon as the threat was
made known. Who can predict how many peo­
ple may be alive today had action been taken
earlier?
Letters to the Editor
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White Supremist’s beliefs nothing more than trash
By Jane Wilcox
News Editor
The idea of a white
supremist nation irks me. No,
more than that, it incites in me
a fury that defies description.
The nerve of a handful of
white trash deciding that they
are better because they lack a
little more pigment than some.
The particular group I’m talk­
ing about is the neo-Nazis in
Hayden, Idaho that call
themselves the Church of
Jesus Christ Christian Aryan
Nations, headed by Rev.
Richard G. Butler.
The Nov. 18 issue of the
Page 2
Oregonion’s
Northwest
magazine ran an article on this
group, from which I’ve
gathered the following infor­
mation.
For the past 11 years Butler
and his followers have lived on
their 20 acres putting out the
word against Jews, Catholics,
blacks, Mexican-Americans
and homo-sexuals, as well as
communism and the American
economic system through their
own printing press.
Butler has been quoted by
Northwest as saying, “The
white race has been the culture
bearers; they have been the
civilizing influence of the
world.”
Unfortunately, Butler is not
the only neo-Nazi leader.
Keith Gilbert, a 45-year-old
convict is the founder of the
Post Falls, Idaho Social Na­
tionalist Aryan People’s Party
and pastor of the Restored
Church of Jesus Christ.
Gilbert is more vocal about
his hates than Butler. Butler
never includes racial epithets
in his church sermons and
speeches but Gilbert litters his
conversations with “nigger,”
“kike” and “greaser.”
Gilbert has threatened mere
children because through no
fault of their own, they were
born racially mixed. It’s been
reported he stopped one child
on the street and allegedly ask­
ed, “How are you today?
Thou shall not live long.”
Gilbert was sued by the
Anti-Defamation League of
B’nai B’rith for using their
name on letters he had sent to
the Idaho Legislature. He
showed up in court in full Nazi
dress, alone, to defend
himself. He said, “I have God
and Jesus Christ at my back.”
Do I really need a lying, filthy
Jewish lawyer?”
Funny.
Jewish?
Wasn’t
Jesus
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