I’d agree with these points too. What’s interesting is that both the BBC and Aunty (ABC) have run stories in which the locals have (quite reasonably IMHO) effectively said to the journos, “How about you lot fuck off and send some aid workers instead?”
Pisses me no end. I just wrote a note to a friend who’s upset about the the substance of the news from Haiti, understandably, about the type of coverage the networks are giving Haiti (and probably encouraging my friend to think I’m more than slightly insesitive to the news itself, on account of I told her I want less of it, given the poor quality of the coverage to date.) If they don’t have anything new to add, beyond what they just told us 15 minutes ago, why the fuck am I hearing it over and over again? That’s the function of a news crawl, not a live reporter.
There are angles worth covering, such as the logistical issues with getting aid to distressed people quickly , but all this blather (sorry, Dan) about death counts and $ damage estimates and other stuff they’re plainly pulling out of their asses–this is news?
“Reporting from Port-au-prince, where we don’t know fuckall, this is Cori Kaitic raising the estimate from 38,596 dead to very close to 40,000 now–the current estimate of the dead is now 39,977–whoops, correction, 39,978–on the low end and we don;t really have a high-end estimate yet. It stood at 401,183 yesterday but now that figure is in dispute because a death-count expert suggested it might be in the millions and another one suggested the zillions…”
To be fair, PRR, that’s a problem endemic in the Media in general. I hate the trend, but what would you put on 24 Hour TV News channels if reporters just said “You know Tom, the last time you asked me what was going on this place was fucked up. It’s still fucked up, and when you ask me again in half an hour or so I can guarantee you it will continue to be fucked up.”
So that’s why you get talking heads arguing over What It All Means and the same (or similar) images of starving people scavenging through rubble and crying survivors and all that sort of thing.
Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about it (the way the media works) besides “not watch”, which doesn’t change the fact that something horrible has happened (in this case in Haiti) and lots of people are genuinely suffering because of it.
In addition to his help to the aforementioned baby, here’s another Dr. Gupta piece where he is the last doctor to leave an aid station. He was getting pretty pissed about the whole situation. Sanjay Gupta may be a reporter from time to time, but apparently he’s a doctor all the time.
Thread after thread: “TV news sucks! Waaaaaaaaaaaah”
Yeah, no shit, dumbfucks. Stop watching shitty TV news! Have you people never heard of NPR or the internet? If CNN sucks so bad, why do you watch it?
It’s often on in the background at work or in shops, perhaps?
Here’s more coverage of what Dr. Gupta is doing:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/category/dr-sanjay-gupta/
This is from Anderson Cooper’s blog - I think he’s doing a remarkable job as well.
Frtom the front page of Fox News
And some listeners of NPR’s All Things Considered thought it was inappropriate and unprofessional to broadcast a journalist who is overcome by the tragedy before him.