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We are desensitised to any sort of devastation in an underdeveloped nation such as Haiti.
Our desensitisation doesn't come as a surprise because many of us have heard about these atrocities in impoverished nations ever since we were born. We've learned to accept and expect it.
When disaster strikes impoverished nations in the form of a war, natural disasters and famine, our response is usually lackluster and exponentially more indifferent than our reaction towards disasters in the First World. Of course this isn't the case for every single disaster, but it's important to note that when there is a reaction, it tends to be temporary and whoever is affected by said disaster is then quickly forgotten.
Our desensitisation towards what happens elsewhere in the world, besides the Western world, is a problem. Why? Because at the moment, news stations find it absolutely vital to report that a number of cars have flooded in New York City... or that a tree has fallen over in the streets of Queens or that there's an underground/subway tunnel filled with water in Manhattan.
These are all insignificant and trivial elements of Hurricane Sandy that do not really matter when you compare it to the devastation in the Third World. However, these insignificant and trivial elements are repeated over and over again on TV/internet/newspapers because it 'never really happens here'.
Hey, at least it is guaranteed that whatever has exploded, burned down, collapsed or flooded on the East Coast, will be fixed as soon as possible. We can't say the same about Haiti...
Compare the shut down of 'the city that never sleeps' to the 200k people made homeless in Haiti due to Sandy. Is it at all fair that barely any news outlet is reporting this? Shouldn't this be front page news?
Is all of this attention on New York City because the 'devastation' in NYC (a total concrete jungle with Central Park as one of its only bits of artificial nature) is a reminder that we too are vulnerable to nature?
In the Metro newspaper today, there was a small article on news sites' unavailability due to the power outage, resulting in a 'US news blackout'. Metro newspaper conveniently blocked out any news of Hurricane Sandy in the Caribbean in their newspaper today.
The Metro newspaper was also thoughtful enough to include a story of some British tourist/expat/journalist/whatever having to deal with the idea that even New York city is fragile and can succumb to nature no matter how unnatural NYC actually is.
It must have been a complete shock for Cheryl Latham to have encountered non-operational traffic lights, tap water, gas, electricity and even phone reception. This is a normal occurrence in many parts of the world where people can't even get an antibiotic to deal with their bacterial infections.
The perspective of a New Yorker or some tourist in New York is quite irrelevant at this point as it just fills up newspaper pages with unnecessary First World Problems. Complaints such as 'I'm losing phone signal' or 'the power is going to go off and we can't use the internet no more' are not newsworthy.
Westerners are privileged enough to be their own journalists through the use of Facebook and Twitter but there are many people around the world who aren't. Shouldn't the mainstream media be the voice for those who can't speak?
The overkill on Hurricane Sandy vs the East Coast in British and US media (not to mention social networking sites) sadly sells. It's 'newsworthy', slightly dramatic and also fear mongering. But we get it. We do get it. The East Coast endured some tragedies but they won't have to deal with food shortage, dirty water, homelessness etc. This is something that Haiti has to deal with every single day.
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