There’s an old cliche headline used to capture the Western media’s condescending attitude towards events in second- and third-world countries — “Small earthquake in Chile, not many dead”.
Well, on Sunday, there was a big plane crash in Russia, many dead, including the Polish president and dozens of the country’s top political and military leaders — “wiping out a large portion of the country’s leadership in one fiery explosion” in the words of the New York Times report.
For Australia’s serious media, however, Poland may as well be Upper Volta. None of Australia’s “quality” newspapers rated the story as important enough for their front pages yesterday and the ABC ran it as the third item on its main Sunday night news bulletin. The air crash that killed a major European country’s leadership was covered as though it were minor news in an irrelevant part of the world.
As for today, try Page 15 of The Age. That’d be the obits section:
It was reassuring to know that the most important news that day on smh.com.au was Ricky Martin’s confession that he is homosexual.
Ricky Martin? Gay? Are you shitting me?
But the Poles shouldn’t worry about losing a President, it’s not like they don’t have spare copy.
…so Ricky’s not straight? Who’d’a thunk it?
Lets point out Crikey that you are as completely useless as any of the media you are
hectoring.
The goddamned aircraft crashed in RUSSIA, not Poland as you claim in para 2.
A bit hard to criticise others when you are as guilty / ignorant as they are.
Pot calling kettle, over.
As an aside,the story
* dominated ABC NewsRadio from 6am-7am, 715-730am, 815-830am, 915-930,
* led most bulletins from 6am and
* got extensive coverage throughout the afternoon and evening from partner broadcasters like the BBC, DW Radio, and Radio Netherlands.
Just saying, y’know?
Surprised you didn’t focus on the Burkina Faso reference Michael James. thanks for another great contribution.