I would guess they watch no news at all. The audience figures for all the news channels are miniscule. They compete over tenths of a share on their primetime shows.
Us newsies were watching CNN when thats all we had. Now we have Fox as an alternative. The ignorati were never interested!
The thread reminds me of a phony commercial a local radio station ran a few years ago for the “RoffCo Casualty Converter.” It went something like this:
How many times has this happened to you?
You're in your car, listening to the radio, when they announce that a
busload of Hindu pilgrims has plunged into a ravine killing 158 people, and
you think to yourself, "Hmmm, I wonder how many Americans that is?"
Well, with the new RoffCo "Casualty Converter," your questions are
answered! Simply dial in "Hindu," turn the wheel to the number of dead or
maimed, and there's your answer!! 158 Hindus equal 7-and-a-half
Americans!! It's just that easy!!
The RoffCo Casualty Converter!! Makes a great gift!!!That’s pretty funny in a vaguely offensive kind of way…wait is that even possible?! 
As for the news stuff, I had always thought that it was no big surprise that the US news is focused on domestic issues over international.
As a news viewer, who watches many different newscasts as well as several different newspapers, I am much more interested in hearing about the issues that affect me the most. The earthquake in Iran is a tragedy, but the incident in itself affects me very little.
Someone will probably call me an asshole for saying this, but I couldn’t care less.
Many of these Muslim Middle eastern countries are full of America-hating ragheads. For decades, Iranian schoolchildren start each day with chants of Marg bar Amrika, “Death to America”. This type of hate led directly to the events of Sept 11, where thousands of innocent civilians were murdered.
Over Christmas, Americans were once again terrorized by ominous threats of attacks even worse than Sept 11. In an ironic twist, the ragheads instead suffered their own horrendous tragedy, an Act of God no less. Sounds pretty karmic to me.
Wolfsbane, yeah, somebody probably will call you an asshole. Let me be the first.
The Iranian people are the best hope America has of inspiring popular revolt against the very people who insist on those kids saying "Maag barg Amrika.
If the earthquake had centered on a particular point in which the mullahs were all gathered, thereby grounding them to the dust, I might be inclined to agree that it was karma, and I’d be cautiously optimistic that perhaps it signalled a new beginning for Iran. I’d certainly applaud.
Instead, the earthquake killed 20,000 people and devastated a lot of property. Horrible, horrible event.
Prayers to those Iranians who are now suffering.
Yeah wolfsbane, they deserved it. Stupid rag-headed children need to learn that you shouldn’t say things like that because then God will kill you. (deservedly)
And that mudslide in California… If those people were liberal traitors, they deserved to die too.
What a fucking asshole! I hope a house falls on your head. Talk about Karma!
The timing is also interesting. Probable attempts by muslim terrorists to hijack airliners and attack US targets over Christmas were thwarted. Within hours, a major terrorist-supporting muslim country is hit by a huge earthquake. Hmmm…
Perhaps this is Allah’s way of saying “Stop the hate already, people. The evil you do unto others will be visited upon you tenfold”.
You are the biggest idiot I have had the misfortune of meeting.
Congratulations.
So, wolfsbane. Hating America is now a capital crime, eh?
The evidence for those supposed hijackings over Christmas is very, very small . I think it is just scare tactics from those in charge. And why does Fox have to show that " Terror Alert High" message on-screen all the time?. It gets more like 1984 every minute.
Ya gotta wonder too, imagine if instead of spending billions on terrorist attacks, suicide bombings, kidnappings, indoctrinating people to hate America, amassing WMDs etc, these people had invested in earthquake-detection technology. They very well may be been able to predict the quake in time to evacuate Bam.
Is this the same technology they have in California ?. It did not work did it. Wern’t some people killed there a few days ago after an earthquake?
You’re retarded. There is no such thing as “earthquake detection technology”. Earthquakes can occur at any time, sometimes even in places not along fault lines. I don’t know that they’re 100% impossible to predict, but right now geologists have a very, very, very bad record of predicting earthquakes.
Also, you’re retarded.
Although wolfsbane is a gibbering idiot, I have to admit that I, too, can’t summon up a lot of sorrow for this particular news story. Beyond going “Wow, 20 thousand? Yikes!” I don’t feel a strong emotional response, and that would be true if the victims were African, Indian or Chinese. I find the story too remote.
As such, I find the OP’s position patently ridiculous. If Fox news offends him so much, let him change the fucking channel.
Of course, I can remember being annoyed with the CTV National News one night in January 1994 when their lead story was some trivial nondevelopment in the ongoing Kerrigan/Harding knee-bashing story, and (oh, by the way) Canada’s two major communications satellites suffered temporary failures that afternoon, knocking out cellphone and pager service to millions of Canadians (just in case you were wondering why you couldn’t make any calls today). I wouldn’t have bothered damning the news directors at CTV, though I thought the decision was dumb. Frankly, getting worked up into a froth about it would be even dumber.
I am ignoring this drivel but it scares me that there could be more Americans who:
(i) lump completely disparate stuff into terrorism against the US
(ii) blindly categorize Moslem countries as Al-Qaeda supporters
(iii) label all civilians within Islamic countries as terrorists
It wouldn’t surprise me if it was a majority.
You don’t have to feel a lot of sorrow for this story. The OP was a slam against ethno-centric news reporting, something I dislike too. BBC does tremendous non-jingoistic, non-ethnocentric reporting. I can tell you from personal experience that it gives you a profound sense that every human in the world is equal, which is the way it ought to be. But, that is IMHO, of course.
Secondly, the OP was off-target about Fox. CNN did it too…and enough with the “change the channel” responses. If everyone followed that philosophy everytime, the BBQ pit will be empty!
I think that’s not an unusual response. More than anything, horrible death tolls in earthquakes make me furious. Because these deaths are unnecessary. It is possible to contruct buildings that are more likely to stand in an earthquake. This earthquake in Iran was 6.7, we have thousands of people dead. Remember the Seattle earthquake in 2001? It was 6.8 and not one single person lost their life. 57 people were killed in the 6.8 Northridge earthquake in LA in 1994. 63 people were killed in the 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake in the Bay Area in 1989. It’s so frustrating and sad that because of poverty and corruption so many people lose their lives in these earthquakes.
Do not use hate speech or racist slurs on this message board.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope