Please check this out:

     My amazing friend Kara sent me something earlier today that I haven't been able to get out of my head - Nicholas Kristof's Advice for Saving the World. Please give it a read.

     Kristof, a prominent human rights columnist for the NYT, is probably best known these days for his coverage of Darfur. He points out that he often struggles with finding the right angle to strike home the point he's trying to make in his stories - something I remember always having an issue with in my own work (which pales in comparison - both in context and ability - to his).

     In this article, he makes the depressing, yet obvious point that we've been conditioned as a society to not respond humanistically to horrific tales of genocide when told on a massive scale. And he's right. 
     Two years ago, Kara and I went to Cornell with a few friends to listen to him speak about activist journalism, which drew an embarrassingly small crowd. About halfway through his speech, he presented a slideshow of his travels in Darfur, and stopped to point out a stone-faced, 9-year old boy who had his leg hacked off in guerilla warfare; or a weak, smiling 12-year old girl who was recovering from a gang rape by Janjaweed militia. I remember him noticing the number of people - probably including myself - who had straightened up in our chairs. "Ah," he said. "I've finally gotten your attention."

Photo by Nicholas Kristof, taken from a Dec. 5, 2008 National Geographic Adventure article

     Now, in the hope to garner public awareness for the greater good, he suggests that aid groups should invest time and energy toward a marketing strategy similar to what major corporations spend each year to promote a damn can of soda. This will take significant amounts of revenue, which many aid orgs. are already severely lacking, but donor juggernauts like George Clooney and Oprah already seem to have gotten behind this kind of humanitarian cash promotion. It may seem dangerous, or even unethical to mix such business with non-profit, aid organizations, but then again we've become a culture that only responds to flash-pan marketing, so who's to say it can't hurt to try. Any thoughts?