The Media: What is their responsibility?

Media coverage of international events is essential to informing the American people. This can be applied to many different topics, more specifically genocide. The awareness of genocide is something that is in complete control of the media. Without media coverage, information would be extremely difficult to find. The average American will not go in search of information on genocide. Therefore, it must be given to them and this is a large responsibility.

With this responsibility comes discretion. There are a lot of issues involving genocide, but very few articles published. To prove my point, I looked at four prominent online newspapers. This list included: The Star Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. I searched under “genocide” for the past week and here were my results. There was anywhere between three to five articles on each source.

So where does this put the media? There is a very difficult position for them. They are responsible for informing the public about many different events, which requires a balance of various events. Which leads me to another question, where does their responsibility end and ours begin? Should the American public also be responsible for their awareness, because is it not fair to put that burden on the shoulders of the media?