- Foreign affairs - 22nd September 2025
- Breesily - 19th September 2025
- Break in service - 19th September 2025
During 42 years in journalism our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, was always horrified that news values judged a small number of casualties in a developed country, were worth more than a greater number in an undeveloped one, and this is shown in abundance by the recent funicular tragedy in Lisbon dominating headlines, when the day before many more had died in a ferry accident in Nigeria.
Many factors determine whether certain stories lead the news bulletins and dominate papers – most of them BIZARRE!
For example the terrible tragedy in Ukraine makes the news almost nightly (understandably), but one of the reasons should be understood.
It is because the people are white.
Indeed we can go further than that and say that the suffering of the people there resonates more with News Editors because the families involved look like anyone down the street.
Appalling events involving far more people (but with the victims black) usually only make programme’s running orders when there are other factors:
- A celebrity or well known news person is involved.
- The numbers are so enormous the story cannot be ignored.
- There is a political dimension, ideally affecting the UK.
Let’s take the example of Gaza which falls into both the second and third categories.
As of September 10 2025, over 66,700 people were reported killed there according to the Gaza Health Ministry (GHM).
The political issues also cannot be ignored.
The contentious Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is trying to hold together his fragile right wing coalition, which wants not only to wipe out Hamas, but eventually to resettle the Gaza strip entirely.
Remember that he had been put on trial for alleged corruption, when he had accused his detractors of orchestrating a politically motivated “witch-hunt” against him.
Mr Netanyahu denied charges that he received illegal gifts from wealthy benefactors, and conspired with press barons to change media laws as well as regulations in return for favourable coverage.
He had tried to pass laws that would have granted him immunity from prosecution, but failed to gain the necessary majority.
It has also had political ramifications at home as the slaughter has become so appalling, that it has become a rallying cry for demonstrators.
Perhaps reflecting this, in a statement on July 24 Sir Keir Starmer highlighted the worsening situation in Gaza, describing it as a “humanitarian catastrophe”, and after Donald Trump concluded his state visit to the UK, he recognised a Palestinian state.
On September 14 the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) said: “Political and diplomatic efforts continue to secure a ceasefire, the release of hostages and the unrestricted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, alongside work to restore a framework for peace”.
For these reasons the awful episode has moved up running orders.
There have been other instances which emphasise this absurd state of affairs.
In Ethopia one famine in 1984 drew an incredible response, although there have been other ones equally terrible that have not gained anything like the same amount of attention.
The reason is that it was presented by a well-known BBC newsman – Michael Buerk.
This was for him a “biblical famine”, and in the years before online videos, social media and internet news, his words still managed to reach around the world, with the footage being shown by more than 400 television stations worldwide.
Let’s turn now to the situation in Lisbon versus what has happened in Nigeria.
These events do not fit into any of the three boxes for journalists, so they merely highlight the ridiculous disparity in reporting them.
The derailing of the Gloría funicular in Portugal’s capital, killed 16 people on September 3 (a dreadful tragedy), sparking days of news coverage in Western countries.
Five of those killed were Portuguese along with three Britons, two South Koreans, two Canadians, an American, a Ukrainian, a Swiss and a French national.
However it was rather different elsewhere.
A ferry accident in northern Nigeria, killed at least 60 people a day earlier, but have you heard about that?!
This basically means that the life of a black person is worth less than the life of a white person (or in the case of the South Koreans presumably ‘whiteISH’).
So you have to think about why a story is in the news.
It might all come down to which box it fits into…
The memories of Phil’s extraordinary decades long award-winning career in journalism (when stories were reported according to what colour was the skin of those involved) have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – why the conviction of a volunteer police officer for raping a child, and revelations by The Eye that a South Wales criminal had also been a special constable, have renewed calls for vetting procedures to be tightened, and mistakes of forces to be examined.
