What are we lacking - attention, compassion - or both, when we ignore WW2-scale conflicts happening right now?
A 2008 report suggests that in the Democratic Republic of Congo some 5.4m people have died since fighting broke out in 1998. It is not just direct conflict that kills, but the knock-on effects. Most deaths have actually come from malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition. The vast majority who have died are children (19% of the population but 47% of the deaths).
Where is the regular, sustained global media coverage of this conflict? Can we even blame the media anyway? I sn't the uncomfortable truth that many of us as individuals are increasingly desensitised to such statistics?
Joseph Pulitzer said that "a cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself", but which is the cart and which the horse I'm no longer certain...
