The influence of the media on our worldview is both subtle and powerful. The media is given over to disasters that are "of the minute", disasters that create a lot of terrible images. Consider this:
One African child dies of Malaria every minute.Ironically, I would not have known of these numbers without the publicity of the World Health Organisation either.
Globally, for every two people who die in traffic accidents, one mother and 20 children die from preventable and treatable causes.
1,400 mothers die every day from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. 70% of deaths are from just 5 causes: haemorrhage (24%), infection (15%), unsafe abortion (13%), high blood pressure (12%), and obstructed labour (8%).
More than 6 million children could be saved each year if they were reached by a small set of preventive and curative interventions.
I scan the news report for the casualty rate. I read, "1,000". I think, "Oh, okay, that's not too bad compared with the boxing day tsunami." Yet a father who loses his child in this recent earthquake experiences the same tragedy as a father who loses his child in the earlier one, no?
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