February 17, 2010
Media monitor and analyst Danny Schecter probes beneath the superficiality of TV-coverage of Haiti relief, and the focus on celebrity benefits, saying that “Entertainment and popular culture are moving and valuable but ongoing popular education on the issues is more important.”
Among Danny’s recommendations:
We need another professionally staffed website to insure public accountability and transparency on where all the money raised by international agencies, national governments and charities is going.
We need funds to hire, empower and train Haitians to become the watchdogs. We also need media outlets to put more Haitian voices on the air, not just as singers, but as spokespeople for a people who have lost so much and are being treated only as victims, not architects of the future they need to create.
Haiti has to be in charge of what happens to Haiti. Reconstruction could take a decade.
Read the rest here, and watch a Russia Today TV interview with Schecter for more of his analysis of the relief effort here.
