While US headlines in 2007 were dominated by celebrity gossip, next year's US presidential election and Iraq, humanitarian stories went largely unreported, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres. The aid organization, also known as Doctors Without Borders, identified violence, forced displacement and disease in the Central African Republic, Somalia and Sri Lanka among the top 10 underreported stories of 2007. The list, released on Thursday, also highlighted what it described as the forgotten crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Chechnya.
The group began producing its top 10 list in 1998 in response to the poor US media coverage of a devastating famine in southern Sudan. In its 10th list, it said the ongoing toll of tuberculosis and childhood malnutrition continued to be largely ignored by the media. The organization said eight of the countries and issues highlighted on its list accounted for just 18 minutes of coverage on the top three US television networks' nightly newscasts from January until November.
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