NUMBER: 4TITLE: Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death
AUTHOR: Susan D. Moeller
STARTED: January 3, 2006
FINISHED: January 15, 2006
PAGES: 390
GENRE: Media Studies
FIRST SENTENCE:"The Four Horsemen are up and away, with the press corps stumbling along behind," charged activist Germaine Greer, after a series of debacles in 1994, ranging from ethnic slaughter in Rwanda and Bosnia, famine in the Horn of Africa and an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria in Britain.
SUMMARY: [From the back of the book] Susan D. Moeller's Compassion Fatigue warns that the American media threaten our ability to understand the world around us. Why do the media cover the world in the way that they do? Are they simply following marketplace demand for tabloid-style international news? Or are they creating an audience that has seen too much - or too little - to care? Through a series of case studies of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - disease, famine, war and death - Moeller investigates how newspapers, newsmagazines and television have covered international crises ocer the last two decades, identifying the ruts into which the media have fallen and revealing why.
REASON FOR READING: Assigned for my media studies comprehensive exam. (I kicked that test's butt.)
THOUGHTS: Having already written one essay on this book, I'm not really in the mood to write another. That being said, this book succumbs to its own investigation. While Moeller does and amazing job of describing, detailing, and wailing against Compassion Fatigue, I'm left feeling, for lack of a better term, "meh." She does a fine job of talking about compassion fatigue, what it is, how it happens, all the while using examples. But, in the end, she fails to move her readers. There was no passion in the writing or personal story in this book to make the reader care. It was all content and no heart. While the material is extremely important, and Moeller does a great job of writing it, I wish she had not saved her ire for the conclusion. The force and animosity in the conclusions should have permeated the entire work.
MISCELLANEOUS: Why do all my school assignments require me to read books that make me feel like humanity lacks a soul?
KEEP/SHARE/CRINGE(?): Keep (for now)
RATING: 7/10 [Very Good]
CR: The Sandman: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman
RN: The Sandman: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman
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