“What’s Darfur?” my best friend asked me when she over heard a conversation between my mother and I. We had been discussing how little the coverage on Sudan has been since I had discovered the astounding book “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmeal Beah; the memoirs of a boy soldier. She was the perfect example for the conversation.
Ask her what is new with Paris Hilton, and she could give me the day she arrived to Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, the details within her stay and the date she left and what she has been doing lately.
Paris Hilton’s jail sentence, Lindsay Lohan’s drug abuse, Nicole Richie’s pregnancy and Britney Spears out of control behavior; these are just some of the topics that come to mind when I think about this summer’s news. But if I was really interested in the lives of celebrities, I could easily just pick up an Us weekly or tune into E! News.
Does anybody seriously believe that there is so little actually going on in the world that MSNBC-TV has had to cover the US election to the extent it did and CNN replaying coverage using “YouTube” numerous times? There is so much coverage on the election, when not too much is really going on. What about a conflict that has left 450,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced? Now in it is fifth year, many of my friends, peers and even teachers do not quite understand the crisis in Sudan and the impact it has and will continue to have on our world.
Not only that, but from a more local perspective, news coverage on the violence that has been erupting in inner city Philadelphia does not seem to headline all of the local newspapers. Just the other day there was a bomb threat at the Septa Station right across the street from where I live, and though the incident became an all day excursion, the story did not even make the evening news.
Instead, conflict between Rosie O’Donnell, Donald Trump and Elizabeth Hassellbeck seemed to be number one on America’s need to know list. Oh and let
