Impressions from India: Breaking the Bubble

My Mom told me the other day that The Herald, Everett´s local newspaper, ran a news story about ¨female foeticide¨ or ¨infanticide¨, generally the killing of a female infant before or directly after birth because of its gender. While I was thrilled to know The Herald was running this story, as it rarely runs international stories of substance, it reminded me of how US-centric our mainstream US media is and how little they cover pressing world issues (outside the realm of US military engagements). Realize that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs on page 2 every day of its ¨A¨ section, something titled to the effect of ¨Around the World¨ that gives short summaries of 10 ¨world¨ stories from that day. Almost every day, five of these 10 are from the US.

You wonder why so many American college students are shocked at what they learn about the world when they study abroad for the first time? In my opinion, our media reinforces the nice bubble most of us live in and similarly, we don’t demand stories from them on these issues.

There are obviously countless pressing human rights issues around the world, but the following five issues: child soldiers, infanticide, human sex trafficking, child labor and ¨honor¨ killings, are pervasive on multiple continents and are rarely covered by the mainstream US media. I’ve included a link for you to learn more. Similarly, there are countless resources on the Internet.