New Rhetoric About Haiti

If you have been paying attention to the news, you will have noticed that this month Haiti faces a new challenge, while still attempting to recover from the earthquake that struck nine months ago. At least two hundred cases of cholera have been confirmed, and the illness seems to be spreading toward the still-devastated city of Port-au-Prince. You can click HERE for a link to a New York Times article about the outbreak.

This is not a blog about Haiti (although it does seem that way, doesn't it?), but I do find it interesting that most media representatives are reporting this news without using much in the way of the classical tools of rhetoric which we have discussed in class. The public has been given information (logos), but the reporting has not provided experts to offer commentary (ethos) or the emotional appeal of individual anecdotes (pathos).

Why do you think this is so? What drew the media's attention to the earthquake that is apparently missing in this situation? What is your intellectual response to this news? How about your emotional response?

What do you think?

-- Liz Holmes