FREE AND ACTIVE PRESS IS A LEARNED LESSON

In Rwanda, more than half of the Tutsi population was slaughtered by a militia of Hutu extremists. While there had been conflict and unease between the two ethnic groups, no one expected a genocide causing 800,000 deaths.

That genocide was a triumph for propaganda. For a year, the government-controlled Rwandan radio station Radio Television Libre de Milles Collines, or RTLM -- one of two stations in the entire country -- had broadcast hate-filled messages to poor and unemployed Hutus.

"The Tutsis are cockroaches," they screamed. "Take back your Rwanda."

Later, during the genocide, they also broadcast specific instructions about whom to kill and where they could be found.

Monopoly control of the media is not fair to a country's people. The Communist Chinese government, for example, still refuses to acknowledge the Tiananmen Square massacre, and a generation is growing up unaware of that travesty. The Nazis, during World War II, issued a constant barrage of anti-Jewish rhetoric.

To prevent this sort of control, a population must hear multiple perspectives. A single source must not control the media, especially when that source has government behind it.

Unfortunately, media sources in the United States do not feel the compulsion to reflect a wide range of viewpoints. Almost every day, you can pick up a newspaper and read front-page stories about the runaway bride or Michael Jackson's trial, but news about the mass murders in Sudan is buried in a 3-inch column on Page A14.

As long as the media continue to cover all the same trivial subjects over and over in the hope that someone will pay attention to them, people will go on their merry way, unaware of terrible things the whole world should be helping to end -- and prevent. For if the only news available to the public is pop-culture fluff, will we recognize if our media start targeting a particular population for ridicule or suspicion?

Free speech is like muscle mass -- very effective when used well, but use it or lose it. Hearing Paul Rusesabagina speak helped me to realize that we must continue to exercise that muscle.