Series panders to Americans' fears by Lesotho RPCV Scott Rosenberg
Series panders to Americans' fears
The Peace Corps is one of the few positive foreign policies we have, and is something that has positively changed the lives of tens of thousands of young Americans. Yet, the Dayton Daily News finds a handful of incidents and uses them to portray the Peace Corps as the most dangerous institution in the world.
The DDN's biased reporting is inflammatory and panders to Americans' worst fears and stereotypes about the rest of the world. The articles provide statistics for those who have suffered from violence, yet fail to mention the numbers of those who returned home without incident.
Not that I am suggesting that the Peace Corps should not do everything possible to ensure the safety of its volunteers, but is it really more dangerous than most big cities in America?
The Oct. 28 article on Lesotho shocked me even more, and made it obvious that this series has a clear agenda - to present only the negative side.
If any real effort were made to learn about the Peace Corps or Lesotho, the DDN's reporters surely would have contacted me. Not only am I a local professor, but I am also a former Peace Corps volunteer from Lesotho who had a Fulbright grant to study there.
Jennifer Petersen was not only a friend of mine, but I assisted in her training, and what happened to her still pains me. This case was not a random act of violence, but rather stemmed from personal relationships. How does this compare to the number of domestic violence cases in our local area?
Not everything in your report was misleading; I support Petersen in her contention that the Peace Corps did not handle the situation well.
On a factual note, Lesotho has less than half of the 5,153,000 million people the DDN reported. At the very least, get the facts right.
Scott Rosenberg
Springfield
