Glimpses of Genocide

An article ran in the New York Times on Thursday, March 22. It was called "Ann Curry's Ambition: To Witness the Suffering." While the article focused on Ann Curry herself and her motivation for reporting from Darfur and various other conflict-torn places, it also highlighted the importance of the media and its role in increasing advocacy.

[Jim] Bell [the "Today" show's executive producer] said he was encouraged that the networks research showed viewers did not appear to be changing the channel during Ms. Curry's Darfur reports, some of them graphic interviews with people who had been badly scarred or lost whole families.

"I would be hard-pressed to say, let's do that again," he said, if viewers were tuning out.

On a more personal note: In January there was a reading of the play In Darfur by Winter Miller at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, where I attend school. The Minneapolis newspaper, the Star Tribune, ran an editorial about the play and ticket sales zoomed from about 200 to 600.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a clip of Ann Curry's reporting to embed into the blog but they are available at her website.