Coverage Of Tsunami The Real Disaster (as newsworthy as airport delays and lost baggage)

NY Post ^ | December 28, 2004 | Linda Stasi

[dead]

IF you were watching TV news over the past few days, it would be hard to know which story carried more weight: The incomprehensible devastation caused by the tsunami which took (at press time) nearly 30,000 lives, or the equally tragic story of airport delays and lost baggage...< SNIP >

In fact, TV news in general treated the disaster like one of those weather stories where the rookie reporter gets battered at the seawall in Canarsie. And every reporter seemed like a rookie this past holiday weekend. Apparently the tsunami would have had to hit Aspen to get the pros off the slopes and onto the story.

When did the Walter Cronkites get replaced by Jessica Simpson clones? All grease and no machinery. And it didn't improve one bit by Monday morning... < SNIP >

Think about the difference in the solemnity with which 9/11 was reported and how this disaster was reported. Can you imagine switching from Ground Zero coverage in the first few days to say, back-to-school shopping sprees? < SNIP >

[G.Mason]

" ... Of course, from prior descriptions of this lady from other posters, her not watching foxnews doesnt surprise me."

I believe they must sign, as part of their contract, that they will not read, listen to or watch, anything produced by Fox News Chairman, Roger Ailes. ;)

[ican'tbelieveit]

Oh yeah, we aren't going to see the end of this for awhile. The disease, etc, have not set in.

[dfwgator]

Oh you can bet they will begin blaming it on President Bush for not signing the Kyoto Treaty.

[goldstategop]

The have... and there's the cheap shot at Jessica Simpson. Do they think what - conservatives are dumb blondes? Yeah, Ann Coulter is really JS in disguise! ;-)

[Psycho_Bunny]

Linda Stasi is behaving like a jackass in this article.

[G.Mason]

Am I to suppose that Scott Peterson, UFO's, crop circles, and Maxine Water's deep thoughts, are going to take a back seat this?

[KC_Conspirator]

I am also pretty sure that some earthquakes (I recall one in China) have killed over 100k people in the last half century.

[HairOfTheDog]

The news today doesn't know how to write stories or research anything without live camera footage. They've gotten lazy, relying on just narrating what we can all see for ourselves on grainy home-made videos.

The video clips of the wave and the dead are coming in now... so we'll be seeing more coverage on the news soon.

[Bon mots]

Floods are the worst natural disaster in terms of numbers of casualties.
China and Bangladesh have been devastated repeatedly by floods - Bangladesh lost 300,000 people in November 1970 and more than 130,000 in April 1991, from cyclone-induced flooding, and the massive flooding of the Yangtze River in China in 1931 caused more than 3 million deaths from flooding and starvation.

The planet's deadliest earthquake of the century, by far, was a magnitude 8.0 that struck Tianjin , China, on July 27, 1976. The official casualty figure issued by the Chinese government was 255,000, but unofficial estimates of the death toll were as high as 655,000. The most destructive U.S. earthquake was the Great San Francisco earthquake of April 18, 1906. Though its magnitude was 7.7, and the energy less than 1/30th the energy released by the 1964 Alaska event, the San Francisco earthquake and resulting fires caused an estimated 3,000 deaths and $524 million in property loss.

An earthquake was responsible for the deadliest landslide this century, which caused 40,000-50,000 deaths in western Iran on June 20, 1990. A magnitude 7.8 earthquake at Mount Huascaran, Peru, on May 21, 1970, triggered a rock and snow avalanche that buried the towns of Yungay and Ranrahirca, killing perhaps as many as 20,000 people.

So let's just say that the 2004 Tsunami is the worst disaster this century...

[Geronimo]

But dude, only a handful of Americans wiped out...

[Capt. Tom]

The worst disaster of our time.

Not yet. - Tom

North Peru, 1970: 7.8 earthquake (66,000 dead)
Bangladesh, 1970: Sea flood (200,000 dead)
Vietnam, 1971: Red River flood (100,000 dead)
Tangshan, China, 1976: 8.0 earthquake (255,000 dead

[dead]

I believe they must sign, as part of their contract, that they will not read, listen to or watch, anything produced by Fox News Chairman, Roger Ailes. ;)

The NY Post and Fox News Channel are both owned by Rupert Murdoch. Linda Stasi is the Post’s token liberal.

[ShandaLear]

Yesterday morning FOX News had a particularly amusing moment. In the 9a new hour they took a call from an American who supposedly witnessed the tsunami wave hit the beach in Thailand. He described what it looked like, people running, and how it was the most frightening thing ha had ever witnessed. He was then asked, "what did it sound like?" His response, "it sounded just like the Howard Stern radio show."

A nice lesson for vetting your sources better, to be sure.

[Sender]

It is a sad fact that the death of one American will always be seen by the news here as more shocking than the deaths of 50,000 unknown people on the other side of the world.

Imagine if some daycare center here were flooded and 5 or 10 drowned toddlers were hanging dead on a fence. It would be an incredible tragedy and the lead story. Now multiply that by 1000. Imagine having to burn dead children or bury them in mass graves, then living with malaria and no shelter. I'm giving what I can to the Red Cross but wish there was something more I could do to help those people.

[ican'tbelieveit]

I saw that. Poor John Scott, wasn't it? He looked dumfounded. And they must have cut the guy off, because there seemed to be a delay.

[ican'tbelieveit]

Maybe it is the number of countries effected that make it seem the worst? And our ability to have media coverage and aid.

[ShandaLear]

He sure did. He kept saying something like, "OK, let's move on." Poor guy.

[aculeus]

To be fair to Fox they don't have as big an international staff as CNN or BBC.

They've now moved Jennifer Griffin from Israel who's doing a compentent job.

[Scythian]

I agree, if a movie star would have been killed then that would have propelled the story to prime time, after all, one celebrity is worth say, 100,000 unknowns ...

[dfwgator]

Must've been Captain Janks again.

That was still not as good as the time he called in during the OJ Ford Bronco chase and fooled Peter Jennings, even Al Michaels was laughing so hard because he knew the joke.