Yep, I mis-spelled her name. Sorry.
I still think Don Lemon was over the line a bit. I generally like him.
I like Anderson Cooper, especially when he gets tickled and giggles.
I’ve never watched much of Chis Cuomo.
I don’t expect them to be robots. Just in control of themselves.
I don’t really care if they show some emotion, but these newscasters have reported on equally as saddening things before, without such reactions. They’ve reported on massive-scale suffering caused by the displacement of huge populations, such as in Syria (10 million); on the Rohingya massacres in Myanmar (25,000 deaths, 700,000 refugees); on the horrendous situation caused by the Civil war in Yemen (100,000 killed, over 10,000 or those civilians; 80,000 children dead from starvation; 3,000 dead from cholera).
What’s happening now is overwhelming because it’s so wide-spread, it’s potentially everywhere, it’s spreading fast, and there are many unknowns. Most of all it’s affecting everyone, including people who never really have faced a crisis. So I suppose newscasters feel that they have to be more emotional, or that they have more warrant to show emotion. But what’s happening to any given individual (Chris Cuomo, etc.) is no sadder than what’s happened to individuals in other news stories they’ve reported.
I once worked in refugee resettlement, and the (former, now settled) refugees I’ve talked to recently are not getting all emotional about stay-at-home, or that a large number of people are getting sick, and some are dying. It’s not new to them.
I remember crying after 9/11 and on the day of the Challenger explosion.
Rachel Maddow seems to have broken up when one of her MSNBC colleagues died of this virus last week.
Yeah, pretty much this.
News reporters are more like celebrities these days. There’s no real ‘reporting’ anymore.
Watch Fox News, they straight up don’t give a shit about people. You won’t see any tears there, maybe a light chuckle if the victim is black.
Rachel, Chris, Don…these are not “news anchors”. They are commentators. They are talk show hosts. Showing emotions is their whole thing. People watch them so they can have their own emotions validated. They also tune in to find out what they should really care about. Sometimes it takes some loud voices, profanity, and yes, even waterworks to get people watching at home to wake the fuck up.
Crying isn’t a sign of weakness no more than laughing or anger are. And anyway, these folks aren’t living in Bumfuck where no one has yet died. This isn’t an abstraction for them like it might be for you (and for me). They are living in the epicenter or they have friends/family living in the epicenter. They personally know folks who have the virus and who are battling for their lives. So cut them some slack ffs.
I was a radio news reader when Ty Cobb died, and I had to choke back tears. It happens, and it’s not something you can control.
Thanks for this — interesting first (well, second) hand observation about keeping things in perspective.
News guy wept and told us,
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet,
Then I knew he was not lying
There’s a Bowie lyric for everything.
Most everyone has their breaking point. The serious news people are working long hours and being exposed to horrible stories. At some point, emotional exhaustion sets in, just like with the medical folks. Even Lester Holt, who is generally unflappable, has had some moist eyes lately. It’s not unprofessional; it’s human.
It isn’t easy to always keep your emotions in check. News people are human, (well, maybe not on Fox) what do you expect them to do when they learn of colleagues that have been afflicted? I’d say cut them some slack. I’d rather see genuine emotion over an ongoing tragedy than one of those gushing videos of a surprise military family reunion.
I turned on CNN this morning and it occurred to me that the whole team is NOW exposed to the virus. I assume they have offices in the same building. And have make-up hair pros they all use. Restrooms. Probably a table full of donuts and coffee somewhere.
I do feel bad for them. As I said above I cry along with them.
Maybe CNN should have a info screen. When a anchor breaks down they could switch to that and give the person time to get it under control. IDK, I’m just grasping at straws.
I know how I mis-spelled Brooke Baldwin’s names there’s another anchor Kate Bolduan. Unusal spelling.
I will now cut them some slack and try not worry so much about it.
I’m not mad or angry with them, but I do feel it’s an overreaction to get views. If it’s YOUR friend or family member, I get it. But I have never once seen a news anchor show emotion like that for sexual assault or murder reports. Not once. Maybe for Sept 11th (I was 13 when that happened, so I’m not positive either way), but there was a lot of shock involved, and could understand some emotion. This feels like a different situation.
I think the difference between those two is razor-thin - if that.