Blog Action Day 2008: Media and Poverty

My contribution to the Blog Action Day 2008 on Poverty would be searching and rewriting development-related news as part of my internship. I usually do this task for the environment program. But the host of the development program approached me this morning and asked for this favor which I gladly accepted. I didn't know today coincides with Blog Action Day that focuses on poverty.

So far, the subjects of the 'development news' I have found and wrote clips on show otherwise: poverty, hunger, and debt. Maybe I am starting to become a victim of the 'good news is no news' journalistic norm. The mainstream media usually focuses on the darker side of life: the slums of Manila, the malnourished children in Africa, and the child labor in India. We can't blame them, in some way, when it is the sad reality. As passive consumers of media, we should see through what is fed us. Better yet, let's try to make this sad reailty a thing of the past.