While cleaning up after Easter dinner, we learned of the dramatic of American sea captain Richard Philips held captive by Somali pirates. Jill and I got into an argument about the situation. I was troubled by Jill’s immediate lack of appreciation of the complex nature of piracy in that region of the world, and Jill, by my perceived lack of empathy for Richard Philips and his ordeal.

For me, news should educate, and for so many others, at least as I see it, news, especially those stories of this nature, is entertainment. While the positive resolution of Richard Philips ordeal was important, the true value of this news story is to educate us of these complex issues and to help craft us solutions to the poverty and  injustices that fuel the problem of piracy. The problem is that beyond Richard Philips, most people don’t care about the causes and, by extension, the solutions. It doesn’t make good drama, where there is a protagonist and an antagonist with the antagonist being punished in the end. It requires thought and participation. This is why these type of stories aren’t news, but entertainment.

Of course, most people would take offense to this, and yet when pressed for further thoughts beyond Richard Philips, people go blank or run to some obscure moral high ground to cry out for justice, law and order for civilization and its interests. Shoot them all and let God sort it out is what I hear.

However, these people are not interested in addressing the region’s extreme poverty and injustices that they believe is to be impossible or exaggerated. They don’t understand that solutions to poverty and injustice are not the results from a zero-sum game, where someone has to lose something in order for someone else to gain. In the end there can be no justice for one if there isn’t justice for all.

Now I am not calling for us to capitulate to the demands of pirates, terrorists or robbers nor am I calling for leniency for those who perpetrate injustice upon others. What I can calling for is to use the news to educate us into finding solutions to problems, not to just entertain us until the next drama.