Comments on: My Base in Goma

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:40:47 +0000

The DRC on the front page has to be a good thing. It has made the international community stand up and do something… send 3000 more peacekeepers. Great. Problem solved!

By: Shashank

Shashank — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:56:52 +0000

DRC never gets the coverage it deserves – it’s far too complicated and most of the world has given it up for lost anyway – so while the news coverage of the past three weeks has been out of proportion to the actual changes on the ground, as we all know, news cycles (and newspaper editors) are fickle. We can’t expect people to pay attention to DRC all the time, or even some of the time, but when they do, I’m grateful for it.

My former newspaper, The Kansas City Star of Kansas City, Missouri, population roughly 400,000, smack in the middle of a country with plenty of big domestic stories these days, made the humanitarian crisis in DRC its front-page centerpiece story a couple of Mondays back. And that was even before Ben Affleck showed up.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:08:58 +0000

Oh yeah. This stuff has been going on for 5 years – plus the civil war before that – with vast death tolls that make Darfur and Somalia look like playgrounds and without attracting any attention. Why now? People really (mistakenly) thought Goma would fall and overspun the story. In the bar here fingers have been pointed at certain media houses for overhyping the whole thing, but I’m not going to share that

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:34:56 +0000

Shame you can't add the Goma chippy to the blog...

It is interesting how the DRC has kept the interest and I can't quite put my finger on why that is. I know it can't last, but... why?

I've put Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan and Iraq through the number crunchers

http://tinyurl.com/59a6gt

http://tinyurl.com/5lh79g

Bit tricky though as Congo is not the term always used. Regardless, despite my perception and maybe yours, DRC is still small beer, even this past month, when compared to other war zones.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:16:15 +0000

It is indeed grinding. And I should have mentioned that the other difference is no "English style fish and chips" on the menu.

Primal Sneeze, although actually the DRC story is hanging on alongside piracy today in my own papers. I may have spoken too soon.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:11:36 +0000

Slumming it I see… So, who’s picking up this tab 🙂 Must be a bit of bind to head back to Nairobi. Mind you, hotel life starts to grind after a few days regardless of how nice the building.

By: Primal Sneeze

Primal Sneeze — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:11:03 +0000

... most news outlets can only cope with one Africa story at a time.

That has to be the quote of the year.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:04:04 +0000

Nutmeister,
Rest assured that the rest of the town is in pretty bad shape and that I’m working like a dog.

By: nuttycow

nuttycow — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 12:59:07 +0000

Rub it in why don’tcha?!