What does it take to make poverty an important news story? Nothing will. We have a ... ]]> For years we have all seen the television commercials on “feed the children.” It seems the actors are the only one’s who get old in the commercials. With so much money we the people give out to charities, there should not be poverty. It makes a person wonder what is really going on. One group got busted for their commercial because the little girl portrayed in the commercial was now actually seventeen, not four like they stated. If this is happening where has the money gone all these years? The commercials claim, “for 60 cents a day” they will feed a child? Feeding a child rice for days and months is not taking care of the problem. Plus for 60 cents they can buy a pair of shoes for the child? If this is true, then why does all the children in the commercials have any shoes?

The parents, they claim are to poor? So why not help with birth control? Only the famous actors and actresses get to adopt these children. We have made the label out of “poor” and “poverty” a money maker. That is only the time that it makes news, is when someone famous get a child that is starving.

What does it take to make poverty an important news story? Nothing will. We have a habit of ignoring the stories that do not get the best ratings. The only time the word “poor” or “poverty” comes up, is when there is a crime. Even now many Americans are on the brink of being homeless. With all that is happening with housing, we have pointed the finger at the homeowners and said; “it was all their fault.” Yet our government is still bailing out the lenders who started this mess. The news makes it look good for the government, but makes the homeowners look stupid. I for one do not watch the news anymore. It has become a game for advertisement. That is all. Then from three to eleven they say the same thing over and over again.

We see poverty in all parts of the world. The question should be, “what has happened to the world?” If a common person does something for the poor, you will never hear it in the news, unless it was a famous spot or a famous person doing the deed for the day. I did see about a month ago, here in California a group of people in northern California trying to the homeless in a park. Now the reason it made the news is because the police showed up and said that the group could not feed the homeless in the park. Why you ask? The park was in a up scaled neighborhood and the people did not want homeless in the park because it made the town look bad. And this became news for the day. Not because the group were trying to feed the homeless, for the fact it made this town look bad. “No, they could not have that.” This is our mind set on poor people, “just make them go away.”

The sad truth is there is going to be more people in the streets. The only way that it will make the news, is when there will be more people killing each other just to survive.

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I think the list will go on and on. Do not you think news on these entire subjects is important and all the people will listen this, read ... ]]> Human beings are quite emotional by their nature. They show sympathy and concerns to poor people and in many parts of the globe, number of people try to help those are suffering. This character of human beings creates interest among them to watch different issues related to human life and sufferings etc. The different stories on poverty catch a lot of audience and I think this is one of the reasons people make poverty an important news story. Besides that some journalists have real concerns and sympathy for the poor people also, so they try to make news stories on it and bring the attention of the globe to it. This resulted in different types of helps for the poor sections of the society.

Let us list out what are the situations that leads to poverty or that identify poverty or can be called as the indicators of poverty. The list may be like this

1. People who are starving for food, not getting two square meals a day

2. Good percentage of children suffering from malnourishment

3. People below the poverty line

4. People affected with HIV/AIDs and other deadly diseases, health related problems

5. People continuously facing drought and famine

6. After math of severe natural calamities like cyclone, earthquake

7. people not getting safe and adequate potable water

8. Child abuse, child labour, child marriage, child trafficking

I think the list will go on and on. Do not you think news on these entire subjects is important and all the people will listen this, read this and watch this? I think yes..it catches a lot of audience.

Again in some countries the suffering of the people justifies the poor performance of the elected government. This gives stories for the opposition to create public pressure on the government. So such news works in both the way-we can compare it as a sword with two blades. Some times the government develop measures to address such issues and people get the benefit and sometimes the government fall down and in the next election the opposition comes to power.

Literally after free trade, globalization we all become the global citizen. So the sufferings of people in different part of the globe reach the global citizens through news story only. Then the development organizations get the scope to work for the betterment of the people. I work in a development organization and I have seen people of different countries are sponsoring the poor families and children of different countries for their betterment. So such news stories definitely bring and generate fund for the poor people.

The most important thing is that now the world is again becoming the living space of “haves” and “have nots”. In one book “The Ethics of Development” I read that the top 225 richest people of the world possess wealth equal to the annual income of the poorest 47% of the world’s people. This is going to create a big problem in near future in the world. So this situation is also creating foundations to make poverty an important news today.