The news-life of a natural disaster, especially one unfolding in a distant land, is often very short. Western viewers lose interest in telecasts of suffering long before adequate help reaches those hit by the disaster. As soon as a new celebrity scandal breaks, the cameras and the attention of millions of well-to-do western viewers shift focus, which cuts-off the supply of the much-needed relief funds.

For charities and relief organizations, the news-life of a natural disaster matters greatly. As long as the TV broadcasts and the front-pages of newspaper carry stories of victims, the donations continue to flow. The challenge therefore is to maximize donations in the days and weeks following the disaster.

Thomas Eisensee and David Stromberg, writing in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2007, observed that when news media is occupied with non-disaster news, such as Olympics, the number of dead has to be three-times more than during slow news-period to have the same chance of receiving government relief. They studied the US government’s response to 5,000 natural disasters, which occurred between 1968 and 2002, and concluded that the level of relief depended upon the extent of news coverage.

They also found that not all disasters receive equal coverage. The media are most attracted to volcano eruptions and earthquakes and pay the least attention to food shortages and droughts. Their analysis revealed that for every person killed in an earthquake, almost 337 have to die in floods to receive the same expected news coverage.

Also instrumental in relief response is the distance decay factor, which implies that disasters unfolding closer to the United States would receive more coverage than those unfolding farther away. Eisensee and Stromberg found that a disaster in Asia would require 43 times as many dead as in a disaster in Europe to have the chance of news coverage. Thus, for the American news media, 43 Asian lives equal one dead in Europe.

Another study from Japan revealed that government relief funds were influenced by the coverage of the disaster in the Japanese news media. David Potter and Douglas Van Belle in International Relations of the Asia-Pacific in 2009 found that Japanese government assistance was not only influenced by the news media, but also was impacted by the pre-disaster trade interactions with the aid recipient. In addition, they found that Muslim majority countries had a lower chance of receiving Japanese disaster aid.

The above trends matter a great deal to the relief efforts in Pakistan. Already there are complaints of muted response to floods in Pakistan. Comparisons are being made with the funds raised earlier for victims of the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan or with the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. According to the Hamilton Spectator, Canadians have contributed only $3 million to the floods in Pakistan against $100 million for Haiti.

I present below a comparison of the response to the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan amongst a select group of western countries. I focus not at the government’s response, but instead concentrate on how the Internet users in United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France and Germany reacted to the devastating October 2005 earthquake in northern Pakistan that killed over 80,000 individuals and made several hundred thousands homeless.

I have plotted internet searches about Pakistan executed using the Google search engine from computers located in these countries. The y-axis in the above graph presents a normalised value on a scale of 0 to 100 of searches for Pakistan against all searches conducted in the above-mentioned countries. The graph represents a sudden spike in the interest in Pakistan in the week the earthquake hit in October 2005. Countries with large number of Pakistani expatriates showed higher response than the rest. Thus, the response to devastation caused by the earthquake was much higher in the UK than in France or Germany. Following UK were Canada and the United States respectively. Also notice the sharp decline in the interest following the earthquake. The peak response was observed for no more than a week and then the western audiences start losing interest such that eight weeks later, the interest in Pakistan is down to the pre-disaster levels.  Thus, the news-life of a natural disaster in Pakistan is perhaps no more than eight weeks from its peak. I also analysed the global response to the recent devastating floods in Pakistan, which is presented in the graph below. The peak response to floods occurred in the second half of August. Counting eight weeks from the peak, Pakistan has no more than the mid of October before the world turns its attention to other matters, such as the Commonwealth Games scheduled in October in New Delhi. It is still not too late to try to raise awareness of the needs of millions displaced by the floods, who are now struggling with hunger and disease. If made aware of  the needs, the developed countries can provide the funds to sustain the displaced in Pakistan. A recent survey of charitable donations (World Giving Index) revealed that  Australia and New Zealand were the top two most generous nations followed by Canada, Ireland, United States, and Switzerland. The news-life of the recent floods in Pakistan is likely to expire by mid-October. Pakistan needs to reach out to the west with the help of individuals whose celebrity is recognized across the globe.  Earlier this week, when Angelina Jolie sought help for Pakistan while seated next to an elderly displaced woman, Zenul Hawa, near Nowshera, the news was highlighted by the media the world over. Pakistan desperately needs more ambassadors like George Clooney and Angeline Jolie, whom the public trusts and can recognise instantly - they have helped raise millions of dollars in the past for  similar causes.

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