"The Government Has Attacked Itself"

Average African Does Not Agree That "Africa Is Rising"

"African leaders, foreign investors and formal indicators of economic growth may say that 'Africa is rising'— but most ordinary Africans don't agree,"John Allen reported Oct. 1 for allafrica.com.

"A pioneering new survey of public opinion in 34 countries across the continent suggests that the relatively high average growth in gross domestic product (GDP) reported in recent years is not reflected in the experiences of most citizens.

"An average of one in five Africans still often goes without food, clean water or medical care. Only one in three think economic conditions in their country are good. Fifty-three percent say they are 'fairly bad' or 'very bad'.

"The survey suggests that either the benefits of growth are being disproportionately channelled to a wealthy elite or that official statistics are overstating average growth rates (or possibly a combination of both).

"The survey was directed by Afrobarometer, a research project coordinated by independent institutions in Ghana, Benin, Kenya and South Africa, with partners in 31 other countries. . . ."

Book Says Coverage of Famine Did More Harm Than Good

"It is almost 30 years since a single TV news report alerted the world to a massive humanitarian emergency unfolding in Ethiopia,"Katie Nguyen reported Friday for the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"'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. . . ."

Nguyen also wrote, "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. . . ."

The story concludes, "Little has changed in the media reporting of famines in the years since the Ethiopian crisis, Franks said. Citing Somalia's famine in 2011, she said there were a few but not many journalists willing to tell the 'horrible and complicated story' of why people were starving in the Horn of Africa country which was, at the time, mainly controlled by al Shabab militants."

• Paul Stoller, Huffington Post: Media Myopia and the Image of Africa (Aug. 8)
  
  

"One of the Most Racially Charged Fashion Seasons Around"

"The Style & Soul section produces four fashion issues a year, spring, bridal, fall, and holiday,"Elizabeth Wellington, fashion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote Wednesday.

"For September's issue, I used a pretty, brown, girl-next-door type to show the season's wearable fashions.

"The comments started the morning the section was published and trickled in over the next few days. They went something like this: Nice section, but why did you have to use only a black model? It made me not want to buy the clothes.

"Ouch.

"Apparently, seeing a brown-skinned woman in a faux leather, cobalt blue peplum jacket turned some readers off. One reader even accused us of reverse discrimination.

"It was a first to hear that kind of contempt — whether the model we've hired was white or black or Latino or Asian. . . .

"But it seems rancor is going around, as this has been one of the most racially charged fashion seasons we've seen in a while. And the talk has gone beyond the usual grousing about the lack of color on the national and international runways. . . ."