Dear <Network>


Please feel free to use your own words and edit the text below. I am writing concerning your network's coverage of the genocide in Darfur. Genocide is the ultimate crime against humanity. And a government-backed genocide is unfolding in the Darfur region of the Sudan. As the horror in Darfur continues, our major television news networks are largely missing in action. During June 2005, CNN, FOXNews, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, and CBS ran 50 times as many stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise as they did about the genocide in Darfur. The vast majority of Americans continue to rely on broadcast and cable television as their primary source of information. No other source of information, including newspapers, radio and the internet, comes close to the power of television. For many of us, if an event is not reported on television, it does not happen. Whether it is coverage of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s, the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, or recent coverage of the tsunami, television news can help stop grave injustices and end human suffering. Increased television coverage of the genocide in Darfur has the power to spur the action required to stop a devastating crime against humanity. Increased coverage will raise public awareness and put pressure on our government to help accelerate the deployment of the African Union forces to the region, to apply coordinated international pressure on the Sudanese government, to insure that the guilty are held accountable, and to build a lasting settlement for peace. In short, increased television coverage of the genocide in Darfur has the power to help save thousands of lives. Television reporters often complain about not having enough time to cover important events around the world. What recent coverage shows, however, is that this precious time is being devoted to matters of far less consequence than the massive loss of life in Darfur. And so I am calling on your network to be a witness to genocide. Give the Darfur genocide the coverage it so clearly deserves. I look forward to a response from you on this important matter. Thank you.