Messy coverage of garbage problem

The city of Naples in Italy was recently beset with a gigantic garbage problem. City planners for all too long had neglected to build more disposal centers to accommodate a growing population and what garbage pickups that were to be had were infrequent and often controlled by companies with shady backgrounds. The end result was a high pileup of rotting garbage that people took to burning, causing more problems.

This Neapolitan dilemma soon became a hot news item with hordes of TV cameras swooping in for the entire world to see. More recently, newly reelected Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi cleared up the mess in just 58 days as promised, using brute force. He moved in the army and quickly started an alternate plan to dispose of garbage and started to build more disposal centers for the city.

It seems that this news item was not balanced in the news. TV camera men were on the scene thick as the flies on the garbage mounds when this story broke but nowhere to be found when Berlusconi sent the troops out to help implement his plan.

The plan has worked... the streets are once again clean but in the eyes of the world Naples remains a Third World city as a result of inadequate TV follow up. Where were they this time around?

Walter Santi

Bloomingdale