Dear Japan

On its way is a review for Battle Los Angeles. A link should appear in the Helium section in a couple of days if my suggested title is accepted. But I thought I should at least mention the Tsunami that hit Japan. Such a thing shouldn't go unmentioned.

I work in a supermarket that sells newspapers and it was kind of depressing that "The News of the World" the paper famous for tapping celebrity mobile phones, didn't even mention Japan on its front page. And the Express only dedicated about 3 pages to the event. True it's better than NOTW but if one of the members of the Royal family had been caught up in it I'm sure it would have run for at least 10 pages.

It's very sad how the News Media works. Just watch Charlie Brooker's Newswipe and you'll realise just how off kilter the news can be. They have a tendency to focus on a running narrative. The example given on Newswipe was a news story about an African community hit by a flesh eating virus. However not very long after the same community was involved in a civil war. The war killed several times more people than the virus did but because it didn't follow a certain narrative it was given no mention in the news at all whereas the virus story ran for several days.

There was another example of this at Christmas time with the story of Jo Yeates' murder. I wondered why the story got the attention it did. Murders happen all the time so why was this one so different? The answer was that the parents of Jo had already appeared on the News pleading for anyone with information about her disappearance to come forward. So when her body was discovered it was big news, it was someone that people already knew the name of. I'm not saying that the story was undeserving of its attention, but you have to wonder if they would have even mentioned it if the parents hadn't been on TV beforehand.

So don't let the News pick and choose what you should know about. Read everything you can about Japan, donate to any type of Tsunami appeals such as http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now/Make-a-single-donation/Japan-Tsunami-Appeal and don't buy any newspaper more concerned with sex scandals than real human disasters.