[Media-watch] CNN's Amanpour: Media has role to play - The Providence Journal - 21/09/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.projo.com/news/content/projo_20040921_honors22.cdc27.html

CNN's Amanpour: Media has role to play

URI grad Christiane Amanpour appears via satellite as
part of the university's Honors Colloquium examining
the issues and politics of hunger.

01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, September 21, 2004

BY ARTHUR GREGG SULZBERGER
Journal Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN -- Drawing on her experience as a
reporter in war-torn regions around the globe, CNN's
chief international correspondent, Christiane
Amanpour, spoke yesterday about the responsibility of
the press to report about conflict and tragedy in the
developing world.

It's impossible for us in the press to shine a light
on every crisis in the world," Amanpour told students
and faculty gathered at the Chafee Social Science
Center at the University of Rhode Island campus. "But
we must try -- wherever we can, whenever we can."

She spoke proudly of how aggressive reporting raised
public awareness of the Ethiopian famine of the
mid-1980s and "helped to bring some aid for those who
could still be helped."

"We as journalists should feel proud that it was
journalists that put the spotlight there."

But she criticized the media's slowness to draw
attention to the Rwandan genocide just a decade later.
It's a mistake, she said, that still weighs heavily on
her conscience.

"Something could have been done," she said. "Had a
deployment force gone to Rwanda, I believe strongly
that the worst of the crisis could have been averted."

The current conflict in Sudan still hasn't received
enough coverage, she said, adding that attention and
resources are aimed elsewhere, namely Iraq and the
upcoming presidential election.

Amanpour's speech, which lasted just 20 minutes and
was followed by nearly an hour of questions, was part
of a semester-long series of lectures and events put
on by the URI Honors Colloquium examining the issue of
hunger. Unable to squeeze a Rhode Island visit into
her busy travel schedule, the URI graduate spoke to
the audience of more than 400 from her London office,
via satellite.

Calling international aid fundamental to reducing the
web of conflict, poverty and hunger in the developing
world, she said, "Tiny sums in most parts of the world
make a difference between life and death. Tiny sums
make a difference between waking up in the morning and
dying overnight of hunger."

Several times when answering questions she appeared
critical of the Bush administration, particularly its
policy of not giving aid to groups that teach about or
advocate for the use of contraceptives.

"We must be able to give aid based on need and not on
politics and ideology," she said.

She did, however, applaud the Bush administration's
handling of the Sudan conflict, calling it "proactive"
and stressing the importance of "ratcheting up the
pressure."

Throughout her talk she spoke in glowing terms of the
news network CNN, which she joined in 1983 just after
its creation, and which has lately been struggling
with declining ratings.

The URI Honors Colloquium, "Food & Human Rights,
Hunger & Social Policy," continues Sept. 28 with a
lecture from Anuradah Mittal, an expert on trade,
development, human rights and agricultural issues.
Lectures are free and open to the public.

For more information on the lectures and other events
spotlighting hunger, visit: www.uri.edu/hc or call
(401) 874-2381.


	
	
		
___________________________________________________________ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun!  http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com