Media Matters
Posted on December 2, 2010 at 7:30 am
I’m extremely disappointed with much of the recent news coverage regarding aid and development work. Here are three recent examples:
- NBC Nightly News featured a woman who sews dresses with her friends for little girls in Africa – Little Dresses. To find out why that’s not a good idea read this post – 6 questions you should ask before shipping donated goods overseas
- KUTV, a Utah television station, is working with local sports team to collect used shoes to send to Haiti. This is an issue I’ve written about so much that I actually have a post titled Enough with the shoe donations.
- NPR aired a news story that sounded like an advertisement for TOMS shoes. To find out why I don’t support TOMS shoes read TOMS Shoes: Good Advertising – Bad Aid.
I implore the media to learn the difference between good and bad aid practices, or to contact people that do know before airing feel-good stories about Whites in Shining Armor. NBC has the resources to do the research before airing the story. KUTV and any other organization or business has the responsibility to ensure that they know what they’re doing before starting an aid project.
As long as the media keeps airing stories that glorify bad aid practices, people will continue leading bad aid projects.
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Related Posts:
Dear Journalists – Tales from the Hood
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