Reporting Disasters: Famine, Aid, Politics and the Media

The media reporting of the Ethiopian Famine in 1984-5 was an iconic news event. It is widely believed to have had an unprecedented impact, challenging perceptions of Africa and mobilising public opinion and philanthropic action in a dramatic new way. The contemporary international configuration of aid, media pressure, and official policy is still directly affected and sometimes distorted by what was—as this narrative shows—also an inaccurate and misleading story. In popular memory, the repo...