Historical and cultural context of Live Aid

In 2015, BBC News published an article titled 'Thirty years of talking about famine in Ethiopia - why's nothing changed?' The article centres around the quote "There will not be famine of any sort, let alone anything remotely like the magnitude of that of 1984." The BBC stated that the quote came from the Ethiopian Embassy in London and that for people aged over 30 the sentence holds a special kind of meaning. This is because those people saw the the TV reports in the 1980s showing thousands of children and adults starving to death. However, three decades on the UN is warning that 15 million Ethiopians will need food aid. The articles includes a description of a new report that happened in the same week of its publication and in it one man who lived through the famines of the 1980s says he expects the same thing will happen to Ethiopia in the following months to the release of the report. BBC documentaries have also been reliable as it is a Public Service Broadcaster and therefore they will be monitored by OFCOM in making sure that their resources are reliable.  

This BBC article also explains the original famine and the new which covered it at the time. First broadcast in October 1984, Michael Buerk's iconic news report showed the famine. The BBC explains that in the years before online videos, social media and internet news, his words still managed to reach around the world, with the footage being shown by more than 400 television stations worldwide. The go on to state that one of the viewers of this report was Bob Geldof who within weeks had gathered some of the biggest names in music, created Band Aid and recorded Do They Know It's Christmas? The single raised millions. Then, in 1985, they put on Live Aid, a concert held in the US and the UK which was watched by an estimated 1.9 billion people. The article reports that In Do They Know It's Christmas? one lyric reads: "Where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow." This message is clear but critics of the song say the causes of the crisis where mire complex, with the policies of the government in Ethiopia partly to blame. 

"Thousands were dying every week, the impact of drought compounded by the Marxist regime being in denial about the famine's severity and by the region  being caught up in civil war," writes BBC correspondent Mike Wooldridge 30 years later. 

The article goes on to explain that the efforts of celebrities, charities, governments and the general public meant that it was only a matter of weeks after Buerk's BBC reports before aid started to reach the region. However, death rates still remained high for some time after the aid began arriving - more than a million were killed by the famine overall. But the years since have still seen famine in that part of Africa. Many people still rely of foreign food aid. The Ethiopian government has set aside nearly £130m to deal with the crisis but the UN says another £330m is needed. It says drought has already caused problems and a lack of rain has meant that in the worst affected areas there are 10% of the crops farmers would usually expect. In one region, it says, two babies had been dying every day. 

The Guardian in 2014 did a similar report covering the historical and cultural context of Live Aid. The article was titled 'Ethiopian famine: how landmark BBC report influenced modern coverage' The article looks into the lasting legacy of Michael Buerk's broadcast as a watershed moment in crisis reporting. The images shot by Kenyan cameraman Mohammed Amin, together with Buerk's powerful words, produced one of the most famous television reports of the late 20th century. The Guardian outlines the significance of this broadcast by expressing the scale of the television stations it was shown on worldwide. Even more significantly, it was broadcast on a major US news channel, without revoicing Buerk's original English commentary - something that was almost unheard of. However, the most significant outcome from this broadcast is the fact that Bob Geldof was inspired to begin his series of celebrity inspired fundraising after watching the footage from Ethiopia. This led to the key television event, Live Aid, which became a life changing event, which was once again broadcast all over the world. 

Franks, S. (2014). Ethiopian famine: how landmark BBC report influenced modern coverage | Suzanne Franks. The Guardian. [online] 22 Oct. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2014/oct/22/ethiopian-famine-report-influence-modern-coverage 

Thirty years of talking about famine in Ethiopia - why’s nothing changed? (2015). BBC News. [online] 11 Nov. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-34776109