Part III
BY AL MARIAM
Western JournaLIEs of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” in Ethiopia:
Time was when the New York Times sneezed, non-Western countries caught cold. The New York Times has yet to realize times have changed; the times, they are a-changing.
Nobody gives a damn what the New York Times reports, except perhaps the “dozens of the paper’s employees took to Twitter, writing in unison, “Running this puts Black @anytime staffers in danger.”
Bari Weiss, the New York Times op-ed staff following her resignation tweeted: The “wokes” are the socially aware and brook no nonsense about racism at the New York Times or elsewhere.
The fact of the matter is that the New York Times and the other Western legacy media have cast universal principles of journalism — objectivity, accuracy, impartiality and neutrality in reporting news – to the wind.
They no longer practice — if they ever did — independent, critical, ethical and trustworthy journalism.
They monetize conflict and sensationalism. That is the only way they can seek the attention of the reader.
In the Ethiopian case, they aim to create a narrative that is polarizing, slanted, bereft of accuracy, hyperbolic and socially irresponsible.
The New York Times is conveniently oblivious when it writes about “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” in Ethiopia.
In 1995, Kenneth C. Davis in the New York Times argued: To put it bluntly: The United States may not have written the book on ethnic cleansing, but it certainly provided several of its most stunning chapters — particularly in its treatment of the American Indian in the transcontinental drive for territory justified under the quasi-religious notion of “manifest destiny.”… The colonists of Virginia and Massachusetts elevated New World ethnic cleansing to a murderous crusade…”
People who live in a land of glass houses should not throw stones! As the African proverb teaches, “Beware of the naked man who offers you clothes.” Beware of the New York Times and Western legacy media pretending to dress you up in the garb of human rights!
Western legacy media croaking at Ethiopia in an echo chamber
“A farmer came into town and asked the owner of a restaurant if he could use a million frog legs. The restaurant owner was shocked and asked the man where he could get so many frog legs!
The farmer replied, “There is a pond near my house that is full of frogs – millions of them. They all croak all night long and they are about to make me crazy!” So the restaurant owner and the farmer made an agreement that the farmer would deliver frogs to the restaurant, five hundred at a time for the next several weeks.
The first week, the farmer returned to the restaurant looking rather sheepish, with two scrawny little frogs. The restaurant owner said, well… where all the frogs are. The farmer said, “I was mistaken. There were only these two frogs in the pond. But they sure were making a lot of noise!”
That is exactly what the New York Times and the rest of the Western legacy media ganging up on Ethiopia are doing: MAKING A LOT OF WHITE NOISE! The Reuters frog will croak followed by the New York Times frog, the Washington Post, BBC and the rest of the other frogs.
Ribbit! Ribbit! Ribbit!
The cacophony of the Western legacy media frogs makes it sound like they are a million strong but they are just a few noisy frogs trapped in an echo chamber pond. Admittedly, it is aggravating, exasperating and irritating to hear the cacophony of the drumbeat of white lies, damned lies and journaLIEs. But such is the story of the negative nabobs of Ethiopian negativism.
It must be noted that the Western legacy media are desperate for audience attention and must scramble to grab crumbs of advertising money left over from social media behemoths. They hope to remain marginally profitable, if not relevant.
For their foreign reporting, they have to outsource to local or regional reporters who slap their stories together with little concern for the veracity of facts. The editors in the home offices will allow substandard reporting to pass because they know they will not be challenged.
Trust in the legacy American media continues to plummet in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. Except for Eastern establishment bleeding heart liberals and their ilk, who reads the New York Times?
Regardless, the monopoly of the Western legacy media is gone. Certainly, Americans have many alternatives to mainstream news media and could not care less what the legacy papers say.
The Bitter Truth those who clamor for America’s and Western attention must swallow
COVID-19 has changed everything in America and in the West. There is “disaster fatigue”, “compassion fade” and “crisis of sympathy”.
These entire euphemistic phrases mean only one thing: Americans, especially white Americans from whom the TPLF and its supporters seek assistance don’t give a damn about what is happening in Ethiopia or Africa. Apparently, they don’t give a damn about the Black and Brown people right here in America.
Olga Kazhan of The Atlantic has said it with crystal clarity: It’s hard for anyone to comprehend the sheer horror of mass death. As I wrote in April, “compassion fade” sets in when victims are no longer individuals but statistics, and few Americans have witnessed something of this scale before.
But there’s an additional explanation for this empathy deficit: Part of the reason this majority-white, majority-non-elderly country has been so blasé about COVID-19 deaths is that mostly Black people and old people are dying.
Eight out of 10 American COVID-19 deaths have been among people older than 65; the rest of the dead are disproportionately Black. White people’s brains psychologically sort minorities as “out-groups” that stir less empathy. (Emphasis added.)
How true the statement: “White people’s brains psychologically sort minorities as “out-groups” that stir less empathy.” Do “white people” in America care about “the sheer horror of mass death” in Africa when they care so little about African Americans in their midst?
Put bluntly, I wonder how “White people’s brains psychologically sort black people who live in s**t hole countries of Africa?”
We are the world… We are Ethiopia…
In 1985, Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie wrote the lyrics in “We are the World” to raise money for relief aid in Tigray region. There comes a time When we heed a certain call When the world must come together as one There are people dying Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all…
The words in those lyrics sung for the people of Tigray 36 years ago hold true today with a major twist.
We are not the world.
We are not the Western world.
We are Ethiopia!
We are Ethiopia…
There comes a time
When we must stop the Western media’s White Lies
Damned lies and JournaLIES
When Ethiopians must come together
Tied in the single garment of destiny
There are people dying
Oh, it’s time for Ethiopians to lend a hand to each other
As the Western White Lie media toils to put us asunder
Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life
Because Ethiopian lives matter
That is the greatest gift of all…
“Come together right now over Ethiopia…”
It is the small axe that cuts the big tree.
If we can get a handful of informed, dedicated and relentless Ethiopians to chip away at the New York Times and the Western Goliath legacy media, we could demonstrate to the world they are nothing but, literally, paper tigers!
JournaLIEsm is a crime against humanity
The Ethiopian Herald April 27/2021
