The end of the year would not be complete without a nostalgic look back. I'm not going to go over the biggest stories of the year because if I did, then you'd think Michael Jackson was still relevant or Cindy Sheehan speaks for all Americans. Instead, I want to point out the ten most under-reported and/or misreported stories of 2005. If you didn't visit the blogosphere daily, you might not know about them. These are stories that are important, yet they take a back seat to the daily news as usual.
10Falsified Stem Cell Research
When it was announced that Seoul National University's Hwang Woo Suk published falsified research in last May in the journal Science, the story stayed focused on Hwang. Most of the press talked about how this would affect the scientific community. While this story's impact within the scientific community cannot be denied, I've have seen little written about the affect on our own national debate regarding stem cell research. I think this is because most reporters really don't want this story to be true. Stem cell research is a political topic and even became a 2004 election issue. Because George Bush was cautious regarding federal funds and stem cell research, it instantly became a liberal/conservative issue. It turns out Bush may have been right with his caution and many of the arguments for stem cell research may be based on flawed studies. Honestly, who knows at this point? It's obvious that Hwang wanted to report certain results and that's just what he ensured happened.
The other part of this story that is totally ignored is how much faith we put into studies. Science is slow and and repetitive. However, special interest groups consistently want us to pursue the latest research when lobbying congress. The current link between scientific research and lobbying is paved with money. People want instant results when good, methodical science has rarely been fast with anything and certainly shouldn't be rushed to prove an ideological point.
9Hurricanes
There is a lot that can be said about how hurricanes--especially Katrina--were misreported in 2005. The Katrina disaster reporting was an incredible series of rumors reported as facts and omissions when the truth didn't fit the initial story set up. For example, very little was said on television about how the state of Louisiana turned away Red Cross relief and then blamed it on the federal government. When Mayor Nagin projected over 10,000 would be dead after the storm, it was reported as an official projection and there was never a retraction of that when the reality is closer to 1300. The press was so reactionary to Katrina in New Orleans and the pictures of the suffering of black Americans was so heart-wrenching, they had a nearly impossible time with follow-up reporting as real facts became public.
Since Katrina, there have been two major hurricanes: Rita and Wilma. Both also caused a lot of damage and cost some lives. Yet the pictures didn't seem as compelling and dramatic. I kept trying to figure out how the other Katrina victims and then the victims of Rita and Wilma went somewhat ignored, and then it struck me. The media looked in New Orleans and saw depressing poverty exacerbated by natural disaster and did everything they could to capture it on video. The end result was the ultimate in black exploitation. In a color-blind world, all hurricane victims would have been shown as well as the countless people who collected, packed, and shipped supplies to New Orleans. There is no shame in today's news reporting.
8The Improved Economy
Unless you know where to read, you just can't find out how well our economy is doing. In 2003 and early 2004, the economy was George Bush's weakest political issue. As things got better, the silence regarding the economy was obvious. If it's not bad, then it's not news. It wasn't until I was in a meeting a few weeks ago with a prominent investor who said he's seeing so much cash for investments out there it reminds him of the 90s. The economy is better and it's no longer headline news.
7Oklahoma University Bombing
I've searched and cannot find an incident of an American college student committing suicide with explosives before October 1, 2005. Just being unprecedented alone is enough to report on Joel Hinrichs blowing himself up at Oklahoma University. However, there is so much more to this story. In November, when the FBI report was released, there was nothing about it in the news. Only Michelle Malkin brought it to everyone's attention. And here we are with no more answers from the FBI than the day after it happened. As Michelle points out:
Beyond this, unfortunately, there's not much more of interest in the documents. None of the hundreds of e-mails in Hinrichs' Yahoo.com account accessed by the FBI/JTTF are included in the release. Nor are the names or URLs of any of the websites he visited from his home computer or any of the nine campus computers searched by the FBI/JTTF. The last line of Hinrichs' suicide message is reported, but not the rest of the text document. So, was he simply a troubled soul, a freelance Islamist bent on mass murder at the OU football stadium, or something else? The unsealed papers neither prove nor disprove any of these theories.
If this would have been a report related to Bush's National Guard service, you bet the media would be pressing for more information.
6Intellectual Property
More and more cases related to intellectual property are decided each month. Yet the cases seem to go largely ignored by the main stream media if they don't involve Microsoft. This may be because it's difficult to distill down the complexities of intellectual property legalities into a few hit and run paragraphs. Unfortunately, complacency is going to hurt us all. Judges and lawyers, not elected representatives, are actually paving the way for the future of intellectual property. The end result will be messy, inconvenient, and harmful to consumers. I'd like to see more reporting and analysis on this important topic, especially as it relates to court cases around the country.
5Oil Beneath Colorado
In June, oil industry executives testified to a House subcommittee how Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah have very promising oil shale deposits that would make Saudi Arabia's oil look like a puddle. If you remove my personal opinion of "what are we waiting for", you still have a significant story. Our oil dependency has been a relentless headline since the 70s. Yet when we actually have a real alternative presented, it's mostly ignored. I think he reason is because nobody wants to report that our best alternative for energy independence it is another petroleum product. This story was downplayed because it doesn't fit the assumption that the only good alternative to what we do today is an alternative like solar power or hydrogen. Fortunately, I have faith that energy industry executives will push ahead because they have a lot to gain from using the oil shale. You can bet any reports about their efforts will be negative in tone and will be written to stoke the environmentalist anger.
4Human Trafficking
Modern-day slavery is now called "human trafficking" and it's far worse than the average American realizes. According to the Office for Victims of Crime Web site:
Each year, an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders (some international and non-governmental organizations place the number far higher), and the trade is growing. (U.S. Department of State. 2004. Trafficking in Persons Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of State.)
Of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year, 70 percent are female and 50 percent are children. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade. (Ibid.)
Here is the rub with this story: it's far easier to get a front page headline when you talk about slave reparations for decedents of American slaves than it is to report on the present day slave trade. This bothers me because you can't free the slaves of 200 years ago, but you can do something about what is going on today. However, in a world where the news is nothing but a collection of sound bites and angry people spewing their own agenda, what journalist wants to report on something that might actually require work and research?
However, the human trafficking story is beyond huge. There are so many angles to it. For example, Saudi Arabia likes to import between 1000 and 15,000 children annually during the Haj season. 5000 to 7000 women are brought to the United states every year just for sex trafficking. Following gun and drug running, human trafficking is the third most profitable organized crime activity. Nations like Bangladesh have cage brothels where children are kept in cages. There is also an increase in organ trafficking as black market surgeries become more successful for the recipients.
You would think this story would be more important than the screeching of Cindy Sheehan or the daily incoherent ramblings of press-conference-happy senators.
3Culture Clash in Europe
When the riots in France first started, I was instant messaging with a friend of mine and mentioned the riots. She had no idea what was going on and she watches the news regularly. It wasn't until the third week of the riots that the international press moved in and really started reporting. Then the spin was that the rioting youth were poor and angry and people can't live like that for long. Very little was mentioned about the fact that these youth were Muslim and they were targeting non-Muslim French cars. After the nightly car burning went down from hundreds to dozens, the media went back to sleep.
In the blogosphere, there has been a lot written about the cultural clashes in France and Italy. Violence against Jews in France is so bad that Jews have been warned not to visit. Cops in France had already designated many of the Muslim neighborhoods as "no-go" areas. If you followed the blogs closely, you were not surprised at the rioting in France. If your only source for news was television, you wondered where did this come from?
Arab immigration to Europe has been an issue for a long time. The question of assimilation and adaptation has been asked by some intellectuals in Europe, but the issue gets beaten down by threats of violence from the Muslim community when newspapers get attacked for printing cartoon pictures of Mohammed, banks in England stop giving away piggy banks because pigs offend Muslims, and filmmakers get murdered because they make movies critical of Islam itself. Stories like that were not reported by the American main stream media so the French riots were out of context and certainly underreported.
2The War on Terror
Sure the War on Terror makes headlines every day, but it is also the most misreported story. Part of the blame belongs to the Bush Administration, who haven't clearly communicated long-term War objectives. Iraq has overshadowed the overall War on Terror and the media relentlessly talks about death and destruction in Iraq as if there are no other angles to the story. I'm not just writing about the successes we have seen in Iraq, but also the problems we are facing with Iran, Syria, and the collection of African countries sponsoring terrorism.
On Fox News Watch this past weekend, Neal Gabler said the "War on Terror" was a meaningless term. At first I didn't like what he said, but to a degree he's correct. The media never bought into the fact that we are at war and they still don't. The media has made the term meaningless. The events in Iraq are reported in the same manner that single domestic crimes are reported. There is no big picture or context of war for those events. It's as if the media sees everything in Iraq as a hopeless cause that will magically end when Bush leaves office. Then when 9/11 is discussed during a press conference about Iraq, reporters question the validity of the connection. If they can't understand going after all terrorists after the 9/11 events, they will never understand the War on Terror.
1Trouble in the United Nations
What a year for the United Nations. Had it been 50 years ago, it would not exist right now. But instead, every scandal that oozes out of its facade is dismissed or downplayed. It all started with the Oil for Food scandal. What should have been enough of a story to completely change the leadership within the UN was ignored. I saw some reports about it on Fox News and a few mentions on CNN, but the the story never got "traction". The League of Nations didn't have this kind of scandal and corruption, yet it disbanded because it was ineffective in preventing World War II.
For many people, the United Nations has been the ultimate in how humanity should behave. Reasonable people should meet and discuss issues and solve problems, right? Well, not all nations are equal. Many participating nations practice human trafficking, terrorism, and even genocide. While the United States is constantly criticized for its War on Terror, hundreds of thousands of Africans are slaughtered by their own government. Even the UN Peacekeepers cause problems themselves. Yet, the United Nations weathers the storm because the media is not pushing. If a United States corporation behaved like the UN, you can bet that the media would be all over it. What makes the United Nations different? I think it's because reporters want to believe in the UN as the end-all and be-all of world community.
To me, the story of the United Nations is the biggest under-reported and misreported story of the year. The Oil for Food scandal should have shut the doors or at least forced a change in leadership. The UN has become above criticism and arrogant. They selectively criticize countries like Israel while refusing to denounce Arab-sponsored terrorism. The UN would be a joke if so many people didn't look to it as serious organization.
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