Aid agencies refer to so-called compassion fatigue, which means people do not feel sympathy for the victims of war or natural disaster indefinitely.
However, journalists argue that if reporters can find a way of bringing the reality of suffering home, then audiences may feel sufficiently moved to demand that something be done.
Comment: Many might say, it happened "over there", to them, and not here, to me, or they may think that over there they must be "bad" and therefor I'm good. Journalists are having a difficult time reporting truth and can't seem to "find a way" out from within the MSN's reporting of a continuum of lies. The lies help people here, not over there, which may help them tune out.
"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people....Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."You can read further from 'The message sent by America's invisible victims '.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"... if reporters can find a way of bringing the reality of suffering home, then audiences may feel sufficiently moved to demand that something be done"
It's all about manipulation, aye, Jim?
In a world with as many problems as there are people, which ones shall we decide to 'demand' about? The ones that are hung with bright lights from your news tower?
And why should we allow others to influence our views and actions? That's just more compliance.
re: Comment: M L King's quote was in regards to something that was in his own personal universe. Setting boundaries on our attention makes us much more effective as agents of change.
Work with what is in front of you - what you can touch, you can change.
The further away the Problem, the further away the Truth.
Question Everything.
Trust Carefully.
Banish Fear.
Be Aware.