[Brit_Guy]

"Let's get things in perspective. As tragic as this is for the people involved, we are again being manipulated by the media. Take away the pictures and this is virtually a non-story"

There are possibly 20 times more people dead from this than died on 9-11. Was that a virtual non story? Or do you think the world lost all perspective on that one too? I suspect your trying to be controversial and fishing for a response.

[BobL]

No - nothing devious.

It's just that the media seems to select certain stories that involve human suffering and ignore others. For example, it's well documented that the New York Times had a reporter in the Soviet Union during Stalin's purges, who won a Pulitzer by blatantly reporting that things were going great in the Workers' Paradise. To this day, the New York Times has never renounced that reporter or returned that Pulitzer.

During the genocide in the Sudan over the past decade (up until about a year ago, when black Muslims started being killed by Arab Muslims, in Dufar), the only way to hear about the 2 Million Christians being slaughtered in that country was to watch CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) News. The media didn't consider that a worthy story.

Both of the above cases were much, much, more important, as they involved humans intentionally killing other humans.

In this case, it was simply a tragic event, but heck, the pictures were great.

It's just a problem that I have with the media - if the pics aren't good, it's a non-story.

The people there do desperately need help and the US is generally a big helper, which is fine by me.