Somalian Famine

Somalia is experiencing one of their worst famines in decades and has been covered and debated all across the world. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991; this creates a unique reporting environment. We looked at two media outlets, Al Jazeera and the New York Times.

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera presented the topic in a seemingly straightforward way. The articles were relatively short (generally less than 1000 words) and focused on specific aspects of the issue. They often included various numbers and statistics to describe the famine.

When reading about the famine in Somalia on the Al Jazeera website, there were two common themes amongst the articles. The first is the “humanitarian perspective”. The articles often included testimonials from people and sentimental stories designed to make the reader understand the famine from a more personal or human perspective. These articles would often describe the efforts of multiple aid workers and personal accounts of those affected by the famine. The other perspective is that of politics. The politically-tinged articles would attempt to evaluate where the blame should lie. There was much focus on the actions of multiple groups and “what they could have done differently." They simply outlined the controversy without necessarily taking a side.

The images from the articles portrayed an image of Somalia that may in fact be true, but is most definitely influenced by the opinions of the photographers and authors. The photos depict the stereotypic idea of what Somalia is- not much vegetation, dirty, barren, and impoverished. Photographers attempt to capture the essence of the story in one shot- however, there are often many details that are left out. The two different themes of articles as previously discussed (humanitarian and political) have photos to match. The humanitarian photos often included helpless children and mothers and shots of the refugee camps (above). The political photos aimed more at capturing intimidating militia men to describe the lawlessness and different factions fighting for control in Somalia (below)

On Al Jazeera the articles are presented with an image on the top and the text to follow. Due to this set-up the reader is influenced from the beginning as to the opinion of the author of the article. For example, in the article UN declared famine in parts of Somalia the reader first encounters the title, then the subtitle, and then a picture. Before one even gets to the actual article, there is already a “picture” painted in the readers’ mind about what is to follow. This can be construed as a type of bias based on the theme of the article and author’s opinion.

New York Times

“Famine Ravages Somalia in a World Less Likely to Intervene.” Gettelman, Jeffery.

New York Times. 15 Sep 2011.

I found an article published around 2 months ago in the online edition of the New York Times. I think the New York Times is fairly unbiased, except for a Mainstream bias. They can be considered the newspaper of middle to upper-class white Americans. This story is on what many humanitarians have been calling the worst crisis to strike Africa in decades. That is saying something given Africa’s history of famines and other humanitarian problems. Right away from the title you can tell this article is not written by someone personally affected by the famine in Somalia. Because of the word choice of “ravages” you can tell it is indeed a crisis. The main problem with getting food to the famine victims in Somalia is Shabab, a U.S. labeled terrorist organization. They intercept UN food supplies, often with violence and keep or sell them for their own benefit. This article is definitely slanted toward putting the blame on the policies and political landscape in Somalia for why this famine is occurring.

References mentioned in the New York Times Article

Famine Early Warning System Network – A USAID funded activity that collaborates with international, regional, and national partners to provide timely and rigorous early warning and vulnerability information on emerging and evolving food security issues.

World Vision Aid Group – A Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

Bronwyn E. Bruton – Is a democracy and governance expert with extensive experience in Africa. In her recent publication “Somalia: A New Approach” she recommends allowing any government in Somalia, including the Shabab, as long as it is a government.

Ken Menkhaus – An associate professor of Political Science at Davidson College, Davidson, NC. A Presbyterian founded liberal arts college.

All of the references in this article are American institutions or people.

With regards to Noam Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’

The New York Times applies directly to the main argument of Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation (The First Filter). The New York Times is listed as one of the 24 media giants. Because these companies are so large and publicly owned they have to please a solid portion of their boardmembers. Most of whom are investment bankers, retired government personnel, or lawyers.

The second filter is the Advertising License to do Business. In the media industry it is absolutely necessary for the company’s survival for them to collect advertising revenue. Without this, newspapers, magazines and other forms of media would have to charge the actual cost of producing the media. So the media corporations have to please the interests of these corporations for fear of losing the advertising revenue. In this article, it is suggested that Somalia is beyond being able to be helped. With frustration from America’s last attempt to help Somalia and a current economic crisis, the world is less interested in helping Somalia. I think a corporation would want Somalia to fall into further obscurity so they can be exploited easier. Currently corporations do a lot of dumping and other questionable activities in the Red Sea because there is no government there to say anything about it.

The Third Filter is the Sourcing of the Mass Media. The stories that come into the media all have sources. These sources are often government agencies such as the Armed Forces or the Pentagon. Because of this, the news relies on their stories to sell papers as much as the sources rely on the media to convey their point. The sources used in this article by the New York Times can mostly be noted as being white, American, and Christian. Also, USAID the organization that runs the Famine Early Warning System Network, is a government agency. These agencies are the only ones publishing statistics on the famine in Somalia. They certainly could make the famine look better or worse than it actually is depending on their public relations agenda.

The Fourth filter is the Flak and the Enforcers filter. The criticism any sort of media receives from the general public in numerous forms is called flak. If the flak is big enough it can be costly to the media, which is profit orientated. Flak can come from extremely powerful interests, such as the government, so media does whatever they can to avoid offending the powerful.

The Fifth filter is the Anticommunism as a Control Mechanism filter. Because this was published during the Cold War this filter is about the interests of preserving democracy. I would argue that in modern times this could be called the Antiterrorism as a Control Mechanism filter. The entire Western, democratic part of the world has rallied against terrorism. Even though there are numerous agencies of terror that have different objectives, they can all be labeled terrorist. Because Somalia has no government, they are assumed to be a safe haven for terrorism. The organization most capable of leading Somalia, al Shabab, is also the one being said to disrupting the UN food shipments. The lack of these shipments is making the famine even worse. However, according to Bronwyn E. Burton a primary source in this article, in her recent publication “Somalia: A Different Apporach” the most capable group to run Somalia is al Shabab. The United States government has labeled al Shabab a terrorist organization since 2008. They would like it if the image of al Shabab is a blood thirsty organization whose practices have led to the “ravaging” of Somalia by famine.

Comparative Analysis

There were many differences in how the famine was represented by the two different media outlets. While seemingly subtle, perhaps even unnoticeable to the average consumer, these differences can say a lot about what may be going on “behind the scenes.”

One of the first major differences that stood out was the length of the articles. Al Jazeera featured much shorter stories while the New York Times’ articles were much longer, often spanning multiple pages. This may speak to what the consumer of the news “wants” when it comes to this topic. Herman & Chomsky’s second filter says that the media must collect ad revenue to stay alive. To collect ad revenue they must have a large readership, which could be achieved by providing the readers with the type of articles that they want to read, in this case short and sweet or long and in depth. Additionally, there were relatively few articles available on Al Jazeera while the New York Times featured many more. This adds up to make the famine seem like a much more important issue worthy of coverage in the Times compared to Al Jazeera.

Another difference between the two is Herman & Chomsky’s third filter, the source of the information. Since Somalia does not have a functioning government, there is no singular, central, go-to source for information. Instead there are many experts and international institutions involved in the situation. Al Jazeera often cited the UN and other international bodies while the NYT often times used American based sources. When talking about history, this can slant the perception of what is happening in Somalia and who’s involved.

Al Jazeera and the New York Times are both reputable news sources whom one would expect to report the facts of a situation similarly. However, some of the subtle differences can highlight how the “ruling classes” filter and control the news and how history is recorded. It would be interesting to see how the situation is represented in the local Somali media. There are many factions fighting for power and no singular go-to authority (i.e. government) to get information from. This creates a situation where many of Herman & Chomsky’s filters may not necessarily apply and instead we might expect to find blatant propaganda and corruption alongside honest personal reporting

-Eric Torgerson and Garrett Kranz