CBS Mourns 'Uncontacted Tribes,' Ignores Those It Helps Erase
CBS News, in a sudden fit of concern, highlights a report that half of the world's uncontacted Indigenous tribes could vanish in a decade. A genuinely tragic forecast, yet one that rings hollow from outlets that habitually downplay atrocities against Indigenous populations they deem 'less exotic.' The article cites logging and resource extraction in the Amazon as drivers of this displacement.
Missing, of course, is any critical introspection on how corporate media, often beholden to the same financial interests driving resource exploitation, frames—or rather, obfuscates —similar violence when it’s politically inconvenient. While lamenting future potential losses in faraway lands, the same news organizations meticulously avoid using terms like 'genocide' when describing the systematic
dismantling of Palestinian lives and culture, an Indigenous population with deep roots. They’ll feature reports on Mashco Piro clashes in Peru, but pivot to 'Israel's right to defend itself' when it comes to settler violence and displacement in the West Bank. How many 'uncontacted' tribes get a soft-focus CBS feature, versus how many Indigenous communities are simply rendered invisible by their
news desks? One might wonder if their empathy is merely a convenient geographical filter. (CBS News World, 2024, 'Half of uncontacted tribes...')