What does it take to make poverty an important news story?
It is true to say bush fires, hurricanes, stabbings, terrorists attacks, terminal illnesses and war are justifiably news items which are filtered in to millions of homes every single day. Any reasonably intelligent person can then deduce for themselves that the after effect of these events must produce poverty-stricken circumstances for most of the victims. These traumatic tragedies are news items which concern people world-wide for immediacy reasons. Every victim has a relative or friend possibly on the other side of the planet who will be wanting to be informed. Friends or family, working, living or holidaying abroad may get caught up in a large or small unprecedented conflict or accident.
However in main-stream news there are few regular news items on the subject of global poverty or even the 'relative' poverty which exists on our own door-steps. Statistics are bandied about occasionally with the lastest unemployment figures, or how many people starved to death during the famine of 2001 for instance. Poverty itself is not a dramatic incident which can be 'newsflashed', problem solved, and filed under 'yesterday's tragedy' in some newsroom archive, to be forgotten about until dug up by historians in the next century. Poverty is an on-going dilemma which, like a verruca on the big toe of society, can be and is tolerated, by those who choose to turn a blind eye, which it seems, is most people.
In fairness, there are people out there who study the subject, research the topic, and even make attenpts at resolving the dilemma. Not all are politicians and these voices do not generally get heard. There are real people who manage community groups and provide services to help improve the quality of life to hundreds of under-priviliged citizens, the existance of whom the ordinary well-heeled man-in-the-street doesn't even recognise, never mind acknowledge.
Which takes me back to the question: "What does it take to make poverty an important news story?" Imagine the scenario where you turn on the news one morning and the head-line states: BREAKING NEWS: "Poverty is a Reality!" The news reader- goes on: "It has been brought to our attention this morning that there are some very very poor people in the world TODAY who are finding life very, very, very tough. Some are reported to be dying even as we speak and many more are due to die within the next few minutes, days and years. The government has called in the emergency services to put this wrong to rights immediately. A member of the cabinet woke up in the middle of the night to the sudden realisation that there were not enough people working on the case, and has appointed an International Poverty Comittee to deal with the situation.
Yes, there really is such a committee and it is called: " Global Call to Action Against Poverty. ". It is a world-wide alliance consisting of national coalitions of campaigns to end world poverty and began on 1st January 2005. Remember White Band day? Little rubber bands we wore round our wrists which said: "Make Poverty History". These weren't directly putting food in the mouths of hungry babies but they were helping to raise awareness, making poverty an important news story in a very personalised way.
According to the Guardian newspaper on 22nd February 2008: "The United Nations warned yesterday that it no longer has enough money to keep global malnutrition at bay. This year a dramatic upward surge in world commodity prices, have created a "new face of hunger".."
On the 20th February 2009, the UN announced that poor farmers in Tanzania were to receive a 56 million dollars from a United Nations development branch. As well as that the UN will be funding a 15 million dollar scheme to bolster agricultural productivity in Laos.
So those of us who feel helpless when it comes to making efforts to combat poverty may rest assured that somewhere and in some way there are groups and agencies doing it for us. It may not be head-line news but there is good news out there which can be found with a little time and effort.