I read about a tribe in Papua New Guinea that is struggling to remain a tribe. When the crew first got to the tribe they saw a tribe member, who was going to die in a cave unless she got the medical care she needed as soon as possible. They told the reporting crew at first that they caught wild boar every week, while they were there no one received any meat at all. The leader then came to a reporter and told them that they haven't caught any boar in six months. While the crew went to the medical clinic to check up on the tribe member who was going to die the leader told the crew to pass on a word to the New Guinea Government "We, the Meakambut people, will give up hunting and always moving and living in the mountain caves if the government will give us a health clinic and a school, and two shovels and two axes, so we can build homes."
Interest Piece
The reason why I feel that this is news is because this was a tribe that has been around since the Spanish explorers they are slowly dwindling away and now they are at the point where they are willing to give up their culture. Missionaries came and taught them different things and the culture of the "best" civilization. There once were so many different types of people that you could go 20 miles and come across three different ones. I think it is so sad that we have basically forced this tribe of people to give up their culture so they can survive. It also shows how fast we have destroyed our earth that tribes that could have survived off the land can no longer do so.
A way we could localize this piece would be to compare them to the indigenous people of the bay area and see how they fared and what ways they could help.
OK, but I want news values. One news value I see in this story is "human interest."
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