When reading the news, regardless of where the source is based, there is a lack of coverage on non-Western news. Such heavy media-biases occur on a daily basis, and go underreported. If everyone is reporting on these events, no one is talking about the biased lense in which news has been reported through. I am from Hong Kong and Indonesia and even when I am reading the news, I am guilty of such a bias. It is time we recognize the lack of diversity in what makes the cut to be headline news and what simply gets a small box in the corner of your attention.
Notice the screenshots below, on the United States' edition of The Guardian. When prompted to read more about various senators' banter, one need only look to the right of the "home" icon. When you want to read on important news happening internationally, however, a series of clicks and a keen eye must be kept. It is too easy to scroll past the tiny bolded font, conveniently tucked to the side. While no one can say the information isn't there, the way in which such news is presented might as well write that.
On the night of February 8th, the tension between the mainland Chinese and Cantonese came to a breaking point. Over the past few years, the mainland Chinese government has been trying to crack down on Hong Kong in fear and reaction to the pro-democracy views of the Cantonese, which sparked the Umbrella Revolution. In 旺角, the "phase out" of street vendors on the first night of the new year began on February 8th. While not explicitly stated as related to the Umbrella Revolution in September 2014, both are consequences of the mainland's crackdown. I would not be surprised if both the Umbrella Revolution and the riots on February 8th went completely unnoticed and unrecognized, since mass media coverage is so saturated with covering Trump's every hair movement and the Kardashian's family shenanigans.
Instead of discussing the implications of such outbreaks and strong reactions to mainland Chinese crackdown, The Guardian decided to write it in the perspective of "Hong Kong's business community"... which you are completely capable of reading about, provided that you scroll far enough, and are really good at selective attention to tiny font (in the screenshot: second row from the bottom, on the right).
Moving on to another East Asian country that has their fair share of disregarded conflicts with the mainland Chinese, the 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan on February 6th with a death toll of 116 received little to no media attention. Had an earthquake of such magnitude and death toll happened somewhere in the Western world, it would've made quite a few headlines. Recently on February 13 at 11 a.m., the updated death toll of 116 was shown in BBC news, however was yet to be reported in The Guardian. The Western world's unhealthy obsession with celebrity-watching completely drains the attention from good information flow on news, creating a huge media bias that is seemingly unavoidable.
Such a media bias occurs at both the faults of the writers' lens and the reader's attention. When readers of BBC News, a news source based in the United Kingdom, are mainly reading on "Why more Americans are giving up their passports," it is very easy to neglect proper coverage on over a hundred casualties of the earthquake in Taiwan.
Media biases are dangerous because they allow us to feel a false sense of being informed despite the majority of news sources having strong biases and active neglect in proper coverage of international news. When the very format of news websites allows you to effortlessly glaze your eyes, it perpetuates the ignorance.
When things happen that have clear implicit flaws that need to be addressed, such as the Indonesian ban on "gay emoji and stickers" and clear homophobia embedded in the culture (and the dangers of a homophobic culture for gay people), yet all of our attention is focused on Kanye and Wiz Khalifa's Twitter battle, I am heavily discomforted.
That was a quick frontloading of a few pieces of news from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Indonesia. If any of these things catch your attention, I challenge you to delve a little deeper and reading more.
Tomorrow, as Part II of the trilogy, brought to you by Mahmoud Shaar, will be on how far removed American media (is) from acknowledging the Syrian perspective. Stay tuned.
