On August 14, 2017, mudslides devastated the community of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Although these mudslides killed about a thousand people, this event got little to no news coverage. As such, not only were these mudslides a large humanitarian crisis that affected thousands of people in Africa, they exposed the issue of the unequal news coverage in the United States and helps emphasize the need for net neutrality, as it is currently being threatened.
This is not the first crisis that Sierra Leone has faced in the past couple of years. The ebola outbreak rocked the nation in 2014. Although the death count during the ebola outbreak was not as high, the ebola outbreak still had a great impact on the nation. But while the ebola crisis occured due to the infected animals in the area, the Sierra Leone mudslides are said to have been man made and could have been prevented. BBC News claims, “Most of Freetown’s forest cover, which used to capture the rainfall, has been tampered with. The construction of houses is poorly regulated, and town planning is virtually non-existent. The system of buying land is chaotic and often fraudulent. This was clearly a disaster waiting to happen, which is why many were surprised that no-one has been held accountable. If you hurt the environment, the environment will definitely fight back. It is that simple.” From this, we can see that these mudslides were not technically a natural disaster, but rather, a man made disaster. Sierra Leone’s mistakes and rushes to build houses in non-suitable areas sets an example that nature isn’t invincible.
As of August 2017, it is reported by CNN that, “About 20,000 people have been displaced by the mudslides, including 5,000 children…” Sierra Leone is trying to recover as soon as possible, for the bodies lost in the mudslides may cause disease and infect their waters. The Sierra Leone citizens had a mass burial for the lives lost during the tragic mudslides.
People of all ages and social rank helped with the burial, and thousands of people mourned together in the loss of their loved ones. So far, to help in the aid of the repair and recovery for these landslides, the United Kingdom “ …is offering an initial $6.4 million in emergency support to provide clean drinking water food and medicines…” according to CNN News. Otherwise, Sierra Leone is on their own in terms of recovery from this man made disaster.
One question comes into mind while discussing these mudslides, though: Why hasn’t the average American heard of them? This is due to the logistics of mainstream media and their overall coverage of global news. According to The Atlantic, “… Georgetown scholar Kalev Leetaru tracked all the locations mentioned on U.S. television news between June 2009 and October 2013, then plotted them on a world map.” The results for Leetaru’s studies were interesting however, not surprising.
As seen by the map above, most of America’s news coverage is domestic, which is not surprising. However, it can also be seen that compared to other continents, Africa gets the least amount of news coverage. As a result, disasters like these mudslides get overlooked and little to no people are able to help African countries recover on the global scale that is needed.
Moreover, the lack of media coverage these mudslides got demonstrates how important the Internet is for supplying us news that is not broadcasted on television. However, the wide range of news coverage and perspectives that we get from the Internet may be at stake as well due to the challenges on net neutrality. Net neutrality is the way that the Internet is run currently. We are allowed to access any website we want with no interference from internet service providers. If we do not have net neutrality, then according to the website Save the Internet, “ … internet service providers could be speeding up, slowing down or blocking any content, applications or websites you want to use.” This is very dangerous as, “The consequences would be particularly devastating for marginalized communities media outlets have misrepresented or failed to serve. People of color, the LGBTQ community, indigenous peoples and religious minorities in the United States rely on the open internet to organize, access economic and educational opportunities, and fight back against systemic discrimination.” From this quote, it can be seen that without net neutrality, United States citizens probably would not be able to find out about the Sierra Leone mudslides. Not only would this group be silenced, but many other oppressed groups in American society would be as well. Overall, this was a devastating tragedy that took hundreds of lives, and it brings attention to the issues of unequal news coverage and net neutrality which are prominent issues in American society and should not be overlooked.
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40973539
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/a-new-map-reveals-the-geography-of-american-tv-news/282443/
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/africa/sierra-leone-mudslides/