Tass and Pravda in the USSR also blocked bad news. Sovietization of America is ongoing, and control of the news is part of it.
I also hope for the best, but I'm also planning for the worst.
We need to remember that the officials/rescuers are concentrating on the living right now, not stopping to count the dead. At this point they are in full rescue mode, trying to get as many survivors as possible to safety. I think that is why we haven't seen numbers yet ... it isn't necessarily a sign of the withholding of information or the blocking of bad news.
"Tass and Pravda in the USSR also blocked bad news."
I'd like to think our media had some shred of decency left and was holding back on speculation until there was some official announcement. I have heard them quoting rescue workers as saying they were "pushing the dead aside to get to the living," but as of yet I haven't seen *one* body on the news or heard any speculation on total casualties.
Not necessarily true.
Situation is so overwhelming, with so many of the ordinary things gone (like passable roads, electricity, working phones, light after dark, elementary sewage disposal, food, water) that people don't have TIME or EFFORT to look at the big picture.
And if they did release the news all at once, the US stock market would crumble at the thought of all the $$ and work it will take to regroup...not to mention speculators on commodities, etc.
Prayers for all!
"Tass and Pravda in the USSR also blocked bad news. Sovietization of America is ongoing, and control of the news is part of it."
I would not jump to the conclusion that there is a suppression of news going on. Media personnel go where they are able to go during widespread disasters and report on the details of what they can themselves see and photograph. The result of this fact is the often distorted impression that the worst is happening in one area, since that's the area they all keep showing. Reporting is far from an exact science and when events are changing fast and confusion and panic and danger are everywhere, editors are not going to send reporters where their safety is in sure jeopardy. In this case, the devastation is in many places at once.
The media are headquartered in big cities to start with. Other reports from smaller places will surely follow in due time.
"Tass and Pravda in the USSR also blocked bad news. Sovietization of America is ongoing, and control of the news is part of it."
I love it -- if the media doesn't report the news bad enough, they've become Tass and Pravda. But if they were reporting thousands dead, others on FR would accuse them of hyping the story for ratings. Let's see, maybe if they reported a few hundred dead?. Then they wouldn't be Pravda or hyping it.
Unless you've done it before (I have, although not in something this large), you don't have the slightest idea what it's like trying to get good info in a disaster.