Who decides what is NEWS?

I get that Hurricane Irma like Harvey is a major natural disaster. Having a friend holiday in the Dominican Republic at the time, I was concerned to know how it would affect her. I understand that its effects for the people of Barbudas and Saint-Martin have been catastrophic, destroying their islands beyond recognition.

The human death toll from Harvey which flooded Houston was at least 70; Irma so far has killed 23 people. Which is tragic. No wonder they have received blanket coverage in our news every day for a fortnight now.

Photo: TEAR Fund

Meanwhile in South Asia over 1400 people have died and over 40 million have been affected by flooding in the last two months - but there's a difference. For some reason the floods affecting swathes of Nepal, India and Bangladesh have received minimal news coverage in the UK, despite being among the poorest of countries. The same is true of the flood-created mudslide in Sierra Leone with its death toll of over 1000, earlier in August. Jagat Patna points out that news of such events should be shared as they are symptoms of a phenomenon that affects us all (see Floods in Texas and South east Asia).

What's the reason for the disparity? I fear it may be that resurgent ugly trait of colour prejudice. Perhaps it is the dark side of the US/UK "special relationship": that side of the Atlantic matters much more than the rest of the world, or those lives are that much more valuable.

It seems that we haven't learned that from Shylock's most potent expression of the common humanity of all people, irrespective of creed, colour or any other distinction.

"I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die?" (Merchant of Venice 3.1). 

Of Irma one commentator likes to say, "This is a very very bad storm." Although news clearly isn't a mere calculus of numbers or size, nevertheless one has to ask what are the criteria by which our opinion-formers decide what we will see or hear by way of the news. And maybe this particularly egregious instance of selectivity over a global phenomenon which should concern us all will make them realise why so many of us now prefer to find our news via other means such as social media.