Posted on 01/04/2006 7:14:50 AM PST by Wombat101
I'm send ing an angry e-mail to Fox News this morning.
I've been up exactly an hour and a half and I have seen Geraldo Rivera and the families of the dead coal miners in West Virginia three times already.
It is a tragedy that these poor people had been wrongly informed that their loved ones survived, only to have their balloons popped three hours later with the news that the original information was incorrect.
It's simply disgusting and exploitative that Geraldo has been on three times this morning accomapanied by tape of joyous people, who we all know are about to be given the worst news anyone could possibly get: you father/son/husband is not coming home.
Either it's a slow news day or Fox is guilty of doing that which it regularly accuses the MSM of doing, and exploting a tragedy in the name of ratings.
These people need peace. Not Geraldo and a camera.
Ace in the Hole (AKA The Big Carnival) (1951)
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling Director: Billy Wilder Rating:
Storyline
Genres: Drama, Film-Noir
Plot Outline: When a man is trapped alive in a mine collapse, a self-interested reporter and the townspeople cynically create what we now call a "media circus".
Plot Synopsis: One of several literary and artistic works based on events surrounding the 1925 entrapment and death of W. Floyd Collins in Sand Cave, Ky. See also Robert Penn Warren's novel _The Cave_
http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/379/379350p1.html
Ace in the Hole (a.k.a. The Big Carnival), 1951, co-wr/dir. Billy Wilder. This is a deeply cynical Film Noir sadly based on an actual 1925 tragedy. Charles Tatum (Douglas) is a down-on-his-luck, obnoxious journalist who once worked for a big city newspaper but is now stuck at a small town paper in New Mexico. The hard-drinking Tatum finds his meal-ticket back to the big leagues when a miner named Leo Minosa becomes trapped in a cave-in.
Tatum hypes the event into a national news story, engineering a lucrative media frenzy and a despicable public circus while also duping Minosa into believing he's his savior. Even though Minosa could be rescued more quickly by shoring up the cave's tunnels, Tatum, who's eager to keep this "big carnival" in town, convinces the rescuers to employ a lengthier drilling process instead. Going along with Tatum's ambitious plan is Minosa's greedy and conniving wife (Jan Sterling) who's looking to cash in on her unanticipated notoriety. Tatum's plan, however, goes tragically awry. The final low-angle shot of Tatum collapsing into frame symbolizes his self-propelled downfall.
Ace in the Hole is a grim but eerily prescient look at the media's unquenchable thirst for "the big story" and the public's willingness to play along. Wilder mercilessly eviscerates the gawking masses that set up shop to commercialize Minosa's tragedy. Although a box office flop in its day, Ace remains a relentless indictment of the public's and the media's appetite for entertainment and fortune even at the expense of human life.
Wow! I was just thinking of that great, cynical movie when I was reading the updates this morning!
Yes, when I saw Whore-Aldo shoving his microphone in the face of the miner families I had a flash back to the old Kirk Douglas movie about a slime ball reporter doing anything he could to advance his career, even if it meant causing the death of someone.
Geraldo has done it again. He wasn't interested if the story was true last night, just that it was a good story and that he was in it.
This morning the whole MSM is covering their rears, because once again they reported an unverified rumor. Worse than watching Geraldo though, is watching Fox show a miner's relative saying "the mining company lied to us", trying to cover their own role in validating a rumor.
The mining company never said they were found alive. The mining company never verified the rumor. The mining company did say at their last news conference that the next conference would happen when they had significant new information. That was 3:00 am when they reported finding 12 of the 13 dead.
Fox News, outside of Neil Cavuto and Brit Hume, has been unwatchable for the past few years. It only got worse when Greta and Whore-aldo joined.
"Fox is guilty of doing that which it regularly accuses the MSM of doing, "
Ummm...Fox IS part of MSM. They simply attempt to cater to a conservative viewer...but for Fox (and others in MSM), it's all about money.
Don't forget about blow 'em over Shep! He is right in there with Greta and Whorealdo.
Since your post, FNC has run that footage 2 more times that I heard...
They are never going to name the person that started the rumor, but last night several people on CNN said that it was the governor's aide who was working in the Command Center; they said she heard the communications and RAN from the CC trailer to the church, threw open the doors, threw up her arms, and shouted, "Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! They are alive."
It went downhill from there. ALL of the rumors were spread by the people and the press; the governor nor the company made ANY announcements.
There's got to be more to this.
sw
Well, I was doing the "math" last night, spectre; the rumor started at 11:50 EST; it took the governor about 30 minutes to get through the crowd back to the mine -- and it took at least 45 minutes for them to get the survivor up the shaft back to the surface.
If you add in the time it took to try to verify what they had heard and find out the actual truth, you're getting pretty close to 2:46 a.m. when the company and the governor told the people in the church.
sw
Fox is tabloid tv. This isn't surprising.
we agree with you...we, uncharactistically, flipped the channel over to Imus this morning...we just couldn't take it anymore....now that's unusual for us....
Jerry Rivers (AKA Geraldo) is in a no fly zone at my house. When he comes on, my tuner goes to another channel.
I heard someone say that it was a difficult location to get a cell connection. Maybe the phones didn't work there.
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