UN Posts List Of Top Ten Neglected News Stories

by Thalif Deen

(IPS) UNITED NATIONS, -- On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, a top UN official took a potshot at the mainstream media for being so obsessed with Iraq that it has woefully neglected some of the world's other serious political, social and economic crises.

UN Undersecretary-General for Public Information Shashi Tharoor quoted internationally renowned British journalist and iconoclast Malcolm Muggeridge, who once mocked his own profession when he said the legendary humanitarian worker and Nobel Prize Laureate Mother Theresa "never read newspapers, never listened to the radio and never watched television."

But still, according to Muggeridge, she had a pretty good idea of what was going in the outside world.

"No UN official, I can assure you, would echo Muggeridge," Tharoor told reporters Friday, pointing out that the media still possess an immense capacity not just to influence events but also the way people respond to them.

According to Tharoor, journalists' obsessive preoccupation with Iraq has left AIDS orphans, child soldiers, women peacekeepers and Native peoples out in the cold in terms of news coverage.

At a UN press conference last week most of the questions posed to Secretary-General Kofi Annan related to Iraq. And when he held an earlier press briefing in January to explicitly focus on other serious global problems, every question, without exception, was on Iraq, said Tharoor.

"This is understandable. But there is a side effect, because many stories that should engage your attention are slipping off the radar screen," he told reporters.

The UN Secretariat, in collaboration with agencies such as the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Population Fund (UNFPA) and the agency's Development Program (UNDP), released Friday a list of 10 stories "the world should know more about."

"The 10 stories are not ones that have never been reported," said Tharoor, himself a best-selling author and prolific writer and columnist, "but they are often second-rung issues that need more thorough, balanced and regular attention."

The list includes child soldiers in Uganda ("where children are killing children"); Central African Republic ("a cauldron of turbulence that threatens to undermine peace efforts"); AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa ("a looming threat to future generations where parents have been wiped out in whole villages"); and the peacekeeping paradox ("where resources needed to help keep the peace are being strained by so much peace to keep").

While the oft-quoted clichŽ, said Tharoor, is that "no news is good news," in the UN press corps "good news is no news."

"This is not a criticism of the press corps nor an attempt to tell you how to do your job," he said. "After all, you are the free press."

But the United Nations has a responsibility to highlight stories "we think are important and getting short shrift from the world media," he added.

Tharoor cited the mostly unreported story of Tajikistan rising from the ashes of a civil war. Despite formidable challenges in the aftermath of the deadly conflict, he said, the country's road to recovery "is a scarcely reported effort."

Another "good news story" -- long ignored in the mainstream media -- is the peaceful resolution of a long-simmering border dispute in Nigeria's Bakassi Peninsula, where there has been a recourse to law to prevent a conflict breaking out with neighbouring Cameroon, he added.

Tharoor also singled out the often-neglected story of women as peacemakers. "While the plight of women in war often gets close media attention, what is often overlooked is the vital role played by them in negotiating peace and rebuilding societies," he said adding, "Rwanda's journey to democracy is an illustration of this transition."

The other underreported stories on the list included: the drafting of a UN treaty to safeguard the rights of people with disabilities ("a milestone international convention"); over fishing (" a threat to marine biodiversity"); and indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation ("Amazonian groups facing extinction as their space to live away from the modern world disappears.")

Tharoor said that beginning this year, the department of public information will compile a list of 10 stories neglected by the international news media. "Our number one story -- child soldiers in Uganda -- is merely the first among equals, " he said.

The 18-year-old rebellion of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has forced about 1.6 million Ugandans, mostly children, to escape from wanton attacks and killings.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the story, Tharoor said, is that 90 percent of the LRA's fighting force is comprised of children.

The official admitted that some of the stories have been reported in major newspapers but argued they were invariably "buried in the last column on page 26."

He said his department did a search of the extent of reporting on Ugandan child soldiers in newspapers in Britain, the African nation's former colonial power.

"We found 150 entries for Uganda compared with over 4,000 stories on Iraq," he said. "One expects Iraq to get more attention than Uganda, but 40 times more?"

One journalist told Tharoor that even if a UN correspondent wants to report a story, it might not get past his news editor or editor, who eventually decide what does and does not go into print. The fault, therefore, lays not so much with reporters as with the gatekeepers.

Tharoor said that whenever UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan meets editors or members of editorial boards, he also makes it a point to draw attention to underreported stories.

"We recognize the challenges you are up against," Tharoor told reporters. "We are pointing our finger at you folks," he said, "and you too have people you can point your finger at."