REV Anthony Bedell, St Luke with St Philip CE Church, Bank Top, Blackburn.

The poor have no voice to express their pain THE more an event appears on telly, the more important (television tells us) it is. And yet not many years back, 100,000 people died in floods in Bangladesh. One million people died in the civil war in Rwanda. Neither of those tragedies (according to the telly) was as important as the New York attacks.

Every life is terribly precious. But the message from TV seems to be that the value of a life depends on where the person lives. I guess I share that prejudice to some extent, but am not proud of it.

And secondly, what we learn about the world from the telly (or radio or papers) depends a lot on its being a good photo opportunity, or in the participants being able to speak English, or being important. So the drama of a massacre takes over.

What about the quiet desperation of an oppressed people, and their poverty? Often because the pictures aren't so good, it gets forgotten, or put on at 11 o'clock at night. Or a press conference by a prime minister or president holds centre stage.

But what about the stories of Iraqi women who can't get medicine for their suffering children? They don't speak English, so often their pain is not heard. The well-educated so often get to speak out. The poor have no voice to express their pain.

Of course I share the sense of pain and shock and numbness that so many people have talked about from the New York and Washington attacks.

But there is so much more to the world than what we see on television or read in papers.