Burma off the agenda?

We are two weeks into our international journalism module at Uclan and an interesting question came up at this afternoon's seminar.

What has happened to the coverage of Burma in the last few days.Towards the end of last week,the coverage shifted from the country itslef to the report of the UN envoy to the security council.

However there have been reports filtering out of the country of monks being detained,bodies being found,concentration camps etc etc.

Yet this has received a small proportion of coverage compared to events earlier.

Why?

Well there could be a number of reasons.

1.The media has lost interest as live footage has dried up.
2.There are few reporters that can tell the story.
3.There have been better stories to cover,Iraq troops,Diana enquiry,non election.

I had a quick look around the national newspapers on the web today.The news focuses on the talks between the junta and Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Independent reported this last Thursday

The Burmese regime has stepped up its search for democracy activists in the aftermath of last week's demonstrations - rounding up suspected participants and dividing them into "passers-by", "those who watched", "those who clapped" and "those who joined in".
Patrolling the streets of Rangoon before dawn in trucks equipped with loudspeakers, troops broadcast a series of messages that warned: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!"

The Sunday Times ran this story

THE Burmese army has burnt an undetermined number of bodies at a crematorium sealed off by armed guards northeast of Rangoon over the past seven days, ensuring that the exact death toll in the recent pro-democracy protests will never be known.
The secret cremations have been reported by local people who have seen olive green trucks covered with tarpaulins rumbling through the area at night and watched smoke rising continuously from the furnace chimneys.

And this from the Telegraph

Thousands of monks, who played a leading role in pro-democracy demonstrations last week, have been disrobed and shackled by Burma's military junta and will be moved to prisons hundreds of miles from Rangoon, it was reported last night

BBC news last night ran a report on this story last night but the news networks have not given it the prominence it deserves.