‘Children are starving’ - Anger at excessive #RoyalBaby media coverage

If you happened to be anywhere near a Western news channel or website, chances are you heard about Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, giving birth to her first child.

Many would agree that the birth of the first ever royal baby with African-American ancestry is a newsworthy event and a milestone in British history, a country still coming to terms with its role in establishing the slave trade and colonialism in Africa.

But such analysis was largely absent in coverage of Prince Harry’s first born son.

Instead, critics on social media noted that news channels were plastered with wall-to-wall coverage of strangers congratulating the royal couple and arguably inane commentary on the birth.

The birth happened shortly after Israel had killed 25 people in Gaza, including two pregnant women and a toddler, and as a group of 145 scientists warned that the potential mass extinction of one million species was underway.

As such, the excessive coverage of the royal baby in the face of such doom and gloom prompted a backlash against media outlets and many took to social media to channel their anger.

“It is a condemnation of news values that ‘royal baby’ is a significant news item at all,” wrote Twitter user BandierRossa.

“This is how we know that we live in a world run by and for the privileged, of course. Meanwhile, in places like Gaza and Yemen, the murder of babies by UK allies barely rates a mention,” she added.

The sentiment was widespread.

“Children are starving to death in Yemen, have no access to education in Iraq, are being bombed in Gaza and Syria, while 1,000,000 species are facing extinction, but our focus today is the #royalbaby, #Meghan and #PrinceHarry. Maybe #Thanos was right after all. This is an ugly world,” wrote a user called Humanity Strong.

But not every outlet joined the crowd.

The UK-based Financial Times was praised for devoting just a paragraph to the entire event.

The paper’s entire story read: “Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, has given birth to a baby boy, prompting the new born’s father, Prince Harry, to gush that the ‘little thing is absolutely to die for’.”