For more humanitarian news – 06/28/2023 – Education

Social networks have been taken over, since last week, by critical posts that discuss and compare society’s reaction to two recent events: the implosion of the Titan submarine, which resulted in the death of five billionaires, and the death of more than 300 poor refugees, mostly Pakistanis, who passed the Greek coast by boat on the last 14th.

The debate surrounding these two episodes was society’s (supposed) lack of emotion at the refugee tragedy and its greater interest in the death of less than half a dozen rich people. Although the public has been judged for their apathy towards the humanitarian crisis involving people from the Middle East, it is necessary to understand that the social reaction to real events is directly linked to the way they are portrayed, especially in the press.

According to a report by Care (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) entitled “Suffering in Silence – The 10 most under-reported humanitarian crises of 2019”. ), the displacement of refugees around the world is a topic of little interest in the press. The organization’s ranking demonstrates that most invisible events of this nature are concentrated on the African continent, a territory little highlighted by hard news, that is, daily journalism.

As much as the newsworthiness criteria of daily journalism involve originality and exceptionality, which undoubtedly makes the accident with the submarine a newsworthy fact, it is necessary to think about how the coverage of tragedies and violations of rights, even if they are everyday, do not fail to occupy the news more frequently and in a prominent position, with the necessary humanization to raise public awareness of these issues.

Humanizing the news goes beyond just disclosing the numbers of people killed, missing or injured. Coverage committed to these issues brings to the fore the voice of real people directly affected by tragic situations and violence, making their pain more concrete to an audience immersed in their own daily lives and focused on their own social and cultural specificities.

Thus, themes that are distant from many realities and that could therefore be understood very abstractly, materialize in bodies, faces and voices that inhabit specific territories and that live dramas that can only be understood and empathically felt by those who are different from this type discursive strategy.

The Brazilian press already has experiences in this regard that deserve to be recorded: the daily coverage of cases and deaths by Covid-19, in recent years, especially on TV, highlighting the life stories of ordinary people impacted by the virus, promoting an understanding of the context beyond the rational.

There are also, on a daily basis, news about cases of racism that, despite being many and daily (and, therefore, are neither unprecedented nor exceptional), have become part of the agenda of some press vehicles. By highlighting facts and characters involved in situations of racism, journalism reinforces the importance of discussing and facing it, inviting, albeit indirectly, the whole society to critically engage in the anti-racist struggle.

Inspired by these two themes, the press can expand its gaze and coverage strategies on issues of forced displacement, first of all highlighting more frequently this, which is one of the most relevant issues of our times. Secondly, highlighting the stories and points of view of those who are the protagonists of these facts. In this way, the press will be positioning itself in favor of the oppressed and contributing, more incisively, to the formation of citizens more committed to social justice.