NYT’s Kristof: “If Only Michael Jackson’s Trial Had Been Held In Darfur”

“If only Michael Jackson’s trial had been held in Darfur,” Nicholas Kristof sighs. “Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.”

According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year — “and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings,” Kristof says. “NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes — about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths.”

Kristof adds: “Incredibly, more than two years into the genocide, NBC, aside from covering official trips, has still not bothered to send one of its own correspondents into Darfur for independent reporting.”

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