So . . . the tragedy in Japan has unfortunately highlighted a side of human nature that I find truly repugnant. No, it's not the charitable giving and general concern for the victims, nor is it the fact that most people had never heard of Sendai prior to the incident (which is troubling in a different way, one that I'm not covering here). No, the problem is that our news outlets seem to think that the most important piece of information for them to cover is the number of dead or missing people from our own country, rather than being concerned with the thousands of dead Japanese, and the tens of thousands who are going without food, water, or shelter.
The same thing happens every time there is a natural disaster - American news seems to think that it is important to count the number of dead or missing Americans, Canadian news head as their ticker headline that eight Canadians were dead in the 2005 tsunami, and in today's Australian paper the chief concern is the 149 missing Australians. I know and understand that people are concerned more for those within their group, however defined, than those outside, but surely we can set that aside when there is a larger issue that affects more people than those in our own circle (it seems we can't; and don't call me Shirley).
The Globe and Mail had a whole article to inform us that the Canadian embassy confirmed that there was one dead Canadian following the earthquake and tsunami. One! Never mind the thousands of other dead people, let's focus on the one Canadian. If you knew the victim personally, I can see how that might be important to know, but as most people didn't, why write the article? In this digitally-connected world, it is probable that most Canadians would be closer to one of the Japanese victims (or one of yet another nationality) than the one Canadian victim. This "all news is local" philosophy is outdated and doesn't take into consideration that "local" has been dramatically redefined thanks to e-mail, Facebook and what have you.
In the book "Made to Stick," Chip and Dan Heath tell the story of a local paper that thrives because their coverage is relentlessly focused on their own small town. But the driving force behind the success of the paper is that more than anything they publish names and pictures of local residents. In the face of the disaster in Japan, names and faces are probably not what people want to see, and given that Canada can hardly be called a small town, it seems silly to shove aside the effects of the catastrophe on countless non-Canadians in order to focus on those we are connected to by geographical happenstance.
Besides, it's an ugly side to us, this egocentrism. When the 2004 tsunami struck, a person I was watching CNN with commented that it is just like the Americans to focus only on the American victims. Then we switched to CTV and found the same type of coverage for Canadian victims. It seems that the world over falls into this self-involved stereotype. We are apparently striving to be a global community, and if that's the case, we should act like it.
Odd. I don't think of it as egocentrism. I think of it as patriotism. When we count our dead, we are telling all Canadians that no matter where they are in the world, they are still part of the Canadian family. A Canadian family that contains many Japanese, by the way.
ReplyDeleteI'd sooner see one article paying tribute to a fallen Canadian than the thousands of articles written about a certain TV actor...