Coalition for Darfur: Darfur in the Dark

This week's Coalition for Darfur post comments on the coverage Darfur has gotten in the print media. (Analysis of TV news coverage has already been done.)

The most staggering thing about these numbers is that they reveal that there has been a nearly eight-fold decrease in the number of stories about Darfur between last August and this August.

The other amazing thing is that, on August 1st of this year, former Sudanese rebel leader John Garang died in a helicopter crash. Garang, who only three weeks earlier had been sworn in as vice president under the terms of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of civil war between North and South Sudan, was seen by many as a man who might be able to bring peace to Darfur. Yet, despite his death and the implications it holds for the future of Darfur, coverage of Darfur plummeted.