Profits & Prophets

A year's education for the price of a CD

I caught Diane Sawyer's interview of Brad Pitt last night on ABC's Primetime Live because I knew Brad was going to be speaking about the need for developed countries to get more involved with Africa.  It was a very good interview (which was almost spoiled by Diane's peppering Brad with inane questions about his relationships with Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie).  Brad seems like a really good guy.  I think my favorite line from Brad was:

I can't get out of the press. These people [Africans] can't get in the press. So let's redirect the attention a little bit.

One statistic mentioned during the interview broke my heart.  Brad pointed out that the price of a CD - $16 - buys a year of education (uniform, books and classes) in Africa.  Education can literally mean the difference between life and death in Africa.  They showed this one girl burst into tears when she thought about the possibility that her education might not be funded next year.  Crushing.

Brad is part of The ONE Campaign, "a new effort by Americans to rally Americans – ONE by ONE – to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. The ONE Campaign is engaging Americans through a diverse coalition of faith-based and anti-poverty organizers to show the steps people can take, ONE by ONE, to fight global AIDS and poverty."

Thank you, Brad, for using your fame for such a worthy cause.

Also, since I tend to disparage President Bush, I feel a need to point out that I learned last night that the Bush administration seems to have been the first administration to significantly contribute funds for combating AIDS in Africa.  That's a great, great thing.  Thank you, President Bush.

It's about time . . .

Today, the International Criminal Court launched an investigation into war crimes committed in the Darfur region of Western Sudan.  The United Nations estimates that at least 180,000 people have died (several other estimates place this number closer to 300,000 or 400,000) and more than two million people have been displaced by what has been repeatedly termed a genocide.

For more information about what is going on in Darfur, check out this site or this one.  Also, here is the U.S. State Department's report on Darfur from September 2004.  And here is a fantastic list of organizations making a positive difference in Darfur.

Today's news has yet to make the AP's "Top Stories" on Yahoo! but Michael Jackson's trial has been in the top five all day.  Nice priorities.

The Perception Gap about the Media

I am pretty swamped with work right now, but wanted to quickly post about an interesting new study published yesterday by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.  In the survey comparing the media's perception of itself with that of the general public, there was a pretty big perception gap in terms of the role of the media, its reliability and its accountability.  Some of the more interesting statistics:

• 48% of the public believe news organizations are "often inaccurate."  Only 11% of journalists felt that way.
• When a news organization makes a serious mistake, 74% of journalists believed that they quickly report the error.  Only 30% of the public felt that way.  24% of the public said news organizations try to ignore the errors while 41% felt they tried to cover up errors.
• When the general public was asked if the government "has the right to limit the right of the press to report a story," 29% said "never," 17% said "rarely," 37% said "sometimes" and 14% said "always" (I guess that 14% would be happier in a police state).  Not too surprisingly, the media was much less open to government intervention.

What is the most surprising to me (aside from the huge perception gap between the media and their audience), is that the general public seems to trust the government more than the media.

I'm not saying that the media doesn't have its corrupting influences (e.g., corporate owners dictating or suppressing editorial topics, the sometimes porous wall between editorial and advertising, etc.), but the media, by and large, works to expose and root out its own corruptions.  Politicians, on the other hand, benefit from a system in which potentially corrupting special interests have undue sway on public policy and that influence is difficult to counteract.  Additionally, if a news outlet is corrupted, you can choose not to be exposed to it.  If the government is corrupted, you have no escape from the laws enacted by that government, save leaving the country.

The media, for all its faults, is a "check and balance" on the government.  The government is not a check on the media.  That is why the founding fathers of our country established a free press in the first place.  One need only look to other less-free countries around the world to see the stifling effect of a state-controlled press on the general population in terms of rights and knowledge.

What do you think?