THE INVISIBLE DEATHS

No one wants to die, let alone die unnoticed and invisible to the rest of the world, but in fact, it happens more often than you think. Take the 2.5 percent hike in Peruvian infant mortality rates during the 1990's which equates to approximately 17,000 additional child deaths. Or what about Mexico's economic crisis of the 1990's that caused the child mortality rates to rise seven percent above expected levels? None of that was ever covered in the news.

Despite efforts of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to publicize such news through their annual "State of the World's Children" report, the media seem to turn a blind eye to all the widespread suffering and instead opt for more menial events such as celebrity marriages, break-ups, and models with eating problems. Even a celebrity's death, such as the death of Michael Jackson, receives more airtime — and continues to be covered while the two million deaths of children from diseases all around the world remain unmentioned.

Major conflicts in Africa that have killed millions of civilians have been severely under-reported over the years as well. Of the five years of Democratic Republic of Congo warring that has killed over five million people, the news of such violence and death has only been reported nine times (twice per year) on ABC nightlies. The "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" saga has been on TV almost every other day.

In some instances, certain conflicts get disproportionate amount of coverage than others. The conflicts in Darfur received four times more coverage in The New York Times than that of the DRC, even though the death of Congolese was ten times higher. The Virginia Tech shooting that killed thirty-two students was covered with more gusto on BBC than the series of car bombs in Iraq that killed two hundred innocent people.

Instead, we heard for months about Martha Stewart going to jail, and saw interviews of people "related to her" such as her gardener and next-door neighbor. We had weeks of coverage about Michael Phelps' scandal involving marijuana, and the press couldn't spare us an hour or two at least to hear about the civil war going on in Sri Lanka that lasted almost thirty years?

What makes the media report the way they do now? They refuse to focus on global issues but instead report every trivial detail of a celebrity's life. Honestly, I could care less about a fashion faux pas that Paris Hilton committed. People need to understand that the world does not revolve around America, let alone Hollywood. There is a much bigger world out there with suffering and poverty that we need to know about, because the more we know the more we are able to do something about it.

SATs For The Rich?