This blog entry at Anderson Cooper’s 360 blog makes me want to puke. There’s nothing like self-righteous broadcast journalists who can’t be bothered to align their principles with action.
The post refers to the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of the most violent and detestable insurgent movements in the world. The LRA is half guerilla outfit, half millenarian movement — it is notable for the fact that it specifically targets children for kidnapping. Sometimes the children are brainwashed and forced to serve in the LRA. Female abducttes are regularly subject to sexual abuse. And sometimes the LRA simply kills the children it kidnaps (in 2003, for example, its members bludgeoned to death 9 children it had earlier kidnapped).
On the 360 blog Jeff Koinange writes (emphasis added),
Word of mouth is still an effective tool in the 21st century. The next step is to write to your congressman, your senator, your elected leaders. Tell them of this horror that exists in our time and make some noise. Lots of noise. That’s the only way to keep stories like this on the “front burner.” Otherwise, people quickly forget once the “kids” are off the evening news.
WTF? When is the LRA ever in the evening news? When was the last time you turned on CNN Headlines News or CNN and the lead story — or any story — about the LRA? Most Americans have never heard of the LRA because a guerilla movement that targets kids just isn’t as newsworthy as Lindsey Lohan.
In fact, I would bet $100 that CNN spent more hours covering the Dick Cheney hunting accident than it has spent in total coverage on the LRA in the news network’s 27 years.
But then I guess even CNN has to have priorities. The only way to make people take action against the LRA is to tell the world about their crimes — just don’t expect anyone to do it on CNN.