Media: Coping with the Ethics of Sadness Analysis

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YET AGAIN, disaster has struck on an epic scale. Yet again, we find ourselves witnesses, at one remove, of scenes of unimaginable horror. In the past week, as Central America reeled from the lethal devastation of Hurricane Mitch, we have been able to sit on our comfortable sofas thousands of miles away, watching the tragedy unfold on the small screen in the living-room corner.

The deadliest Atlantic hurricane in 200 years has already claimed perhaps as many as 20,000 lives, and has left millions of people homeless, facing starvation and disease. Meanwhile, the by-now- familiar paradox rears its head once more. Into the world's most Dantean scenes of hell are parachuted …