Next month in Haiti

I don’t have a television right now, which means I am spared the spectacle of the journo-ghouls hovering over piles of cadavers in Haiti, positioning themselves amid dramatic rescue scenes and breathlessly awaiting the outbreak of rioting so that they can get good videotape for the evening broadcast. The torrent of uninformed blather about that island sunk in misery for centuries is particularly offensive because we know that within days or even hours, it will disappear as completely from the screen as it today occupies every available minute.

On another level, you can’t fault people for feeling sad about the destruction and the scenes of human suffering, but someone, somewhere, ought to have an oversight role in reining in the gross pandering to highly ephemeral emotions from which Haitians will accrue no long-term benefits.

The Haitian earthquake measured 7.0 Richter and may have killed 100,000 people; the Santiago earthquake I experienced in 1985 was 7.7 (seven times stronger) and killed no more than 150. Why? Chilean buildings are constructed seismically so that 30-story towers can sway a full meter at the top without buckling. Haiti was hit not with an act of God but with centuries of underdevelopment and exploitation in which the United States has had a huge historic role.

I note that thousands of people have text-donated a few dollars for the relief effort, and that reflects a laudable instinct. They saw pictures of human suffering, they responded with a kindness; ergo, they made themselves feel better, and well they might. But if it all stops there—which if cable TV has its way, it surely will—the whole exercise really is just an emotional frisson for viewers like that of an episode of a good Brazilian soap opera.

I recall the days of the long, dreary struggle against the dictatorship in Chile when my journalist friends and colleagues would go out to see how the years-long agitation was bubbling forth and often would come back frustrated because the uncooperative Chilean masses hadn’t produced enough blood for them to get a good chronicle published back home. They often had an amused and cynical view of themselves for feeling this way and underneath it all truly did sympathize with the people on the receiving end of Pinochet’s crimes.

But their industry has its own logic, and we should keep it in mind. If we care about Haitians’ suffering for more than the current news cycle, we should be thinking about which relief agencies were in Haiti long before this weekend trying to encourage development and support local economic initiatives, and we should send our donation checks (not text messages) to them. Anderson Cooper looking natty in his stand-ups won’t be much help with that, so I’ll try to compile a list from people who know over the next few days.