#1586: Reporting on Haiti : Durran comments

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Mary Durran <mdurran@colba.net>

To add a brief point to arguments about The Phrase, and labelling of Haiti,
I don't think any amount of complaining will change the way the big news
agencies report on Haiti.  As someone pointed out, these filler articles
are meant to be accessible to someone who knows not the first thing about
Haiti - hence the background about the priest-president, military invasion
etc.  (Likewise, if I read an article about a country I don't follow
regularly, I  need similar background   to put the news story in its
context.)  

Newspapers though are generally receptive to feedback from their readers. 
If people on this list communicated with newspapers to comment on stories
about Haiti, asking for more in-depth coverage, this might be more
effective than complaining about what seem trite labels to Haiti
aficionados.