Coalition for Darfur Weekly Post

The Coalition for Darfur has released its latest weekly post, "Witness." The entire post is excellent, but it points out several excellent links that I wanted to share. At Be a Witness, an initiative begun by the Center for American Progress and the Genocide Intervention Fund, you can sign an e-petition to the major television networks urging them to increase their coverage of the genocide in Darfur. It doesn't take but a minute to send up a send a message, so please stop by there, if you can.

CfD also points out this excellent column by Nicholas Kristof, which I read yesterday and was much impressed with. Kristof takes American journalists to task for their paltry coverage of the crisis, and notes that television coverage has been particularly measly. Warning: this quote is sickening. "According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year - and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes - about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.Incredibly, more than two years into the genocide, NBC, aside from covering official trips, has still not bothered to send one of its own correspondents into Darfur for independent reporting."

Kristof notes later in the column, "If only Michael Jackson's trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur."

Fifty-five times as many stories about Michael Jackson, while 400,000 men, women and children have been slaughtered, and millions more driven from their homes.

Also from CfD today, this photo gallery from Brian Steidle, who served for six months with African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. I must warn again, this photographs are not for the faint of heart, but I looked at every one. I cannot help but think if these pictures were being seen on the evening news every night, the world could not possibly be sitting idly by. Could we?

Never again, they said ...