He managed to be the top story on CNN’s website, complete with breaking news alerts. Hurricane Matthew, despite having made landfall this morning in South Carolina, seems to not be taken as seriously by them. Why is someone known for being a misogynist idiot making more misogynistic comments treated as more important than a historical storm?
Because weather is only news if it affects you personally.
Me, in Montana, hearing about a hurricane is only voyeurism. That’s true for most of the country, by landmass and by population: If you need to know, you have local stations which will gladly fill you in on all of the details on a second-by-second basis. If you don’t have any local stations with that info, you don’t need to know that badly.
OTOH, the next President of the US affects the whole country. It’s kind of in the job description. Especially if that person gets to appoint SCOTUS justices, as it looks like the next President will get to.
That storm simply isn’t relevant to my life, or the lives of most people in this country, and the fact you think it’s news says something sad about either your news judgement or your choice in Presidential candidate.
I think having a misogynist idiot as a major political party’s nomination for President of the USA is a far rarer event than a hurricane in the Atlantic, thus more news worthy. Plus, our recorded history of Presidential nominees is quite a bit longer than the history of Atlantic hurricanes. I have absolutely no idea why you would call Matthew a “historic storm” when, in fact, this storm is as mundane as any Atlantic hurricane can get.
The only “historic” fact is that Matthew did not make landfall as a major hurricane, thus our current unprecedented period of a lack of a landfalling major hurricanes on USA territory continues … we have never gone 11 years without, and this count continues …
Tell that to Haiti. Also, we’ve had a misogynistic idiot as a party nominee for four months. The fact that he said more stupid and misogynistic things is to be expected.
Depends on where the storm hits, too.
Matthew isn’t the only storm not to get that much coverage. Katrina didn’t get much at the time (the mismanagement in the aftermath on the other hand…). Rita, in its wake, hardly got any. Neither did Ike a few years later, despite a couple billion dollars in damages. Some of the bigger winter and summer storms got a lot of local press but not much national.
Sandy, on the other hand, dominated the news for a while. If this storm had hit New York, you bet we’d be hearing about it.
People (including the press) are naturally more attuned to disasters where they are, not where other people are.
Haiti. More than 900 dead. The south is devastated. Humanitarian Disaster.
And the CNN headline is “Trump: OK to call Ivanka a piece of ass”
Sigh.
Video proves deliberately abrasive billionaire reality TV buffoon is also a poon hound!
It doesn’t sound like news at all to me.
Haiti. UN Officials estimate more than 350,000 in need of help. More than 60,000 displaced. Red Cross has launched an emergency appeal.
MSNBC.com headline: Deconstructing Donald Trump’s apology video. Haiti is the #6 news item, after Obama casting his early vote.
Disgusting. Trump and the blind eye to a disaster in Haiti both.
And you’re using Haiti to score points on a message board debate.
The point is, anyone who wants to give to Haiti already knows about it. It hasn’t been kept off the news. And the average person really can’t do anything more.
In fact, I’ll amplify that: If you can’t do anything about it, it isn’t that important. That makes a pretty good life lesson, too. Don’t go looking for trouble, and don’t go spectating on the disasters of others. Be an adult, focus on what’s in front of you.
We, as adults in the US, can affect the Presidential election. That makes it big news.
It isn’t a matter of news, it’s a matter of politics.
CNN/MSNBC are totally and unabashed in the tank for Hillary Clinton and they have been all along. They’re panicking because Trump remains close to Hillary in the polls, so their coverage is skewed more toward trying to harm Trump than it is toward reporting what most would consider to be real news.
Video proves deliberately abrasive billionaire reality TV buffoon WHO IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES is also a poon hound AND SELF-DESCRIBED SERIAL SEXUAL ASSAULTER!!!1!
Granted, as our (we all very sincerely hope) next Vice President said
“Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
I think we give weather news way too much airtime in general. (including local news when nothing unusual is happening. It still takes 10 minutes to tell me if it’s going to rain tomorrow or not). The BIG STORMS also get more play then we need. Trumps fall from grace is a lot more interesting than someone telling us there is wind and rain in the Southeast.
You can do something. Donate to Haiti Hurricane Relief Pick your charity of choice.
But that isn’t getting the headlines because some misogynistic asshole said something years ago.
Since when is Haiti being a disaster area news? Haiti was already a disaster area even before the hurricane hit.
Well that’s the other part: because as far as the US media and its often sadly solipsistic worldview is concerned, ***as of yesterday ***this was not yet a major *American disaster a-la Sandy or Katrina. Dead Haitians don’t lead unless it’s truly legions of them 
:mad:
Had the Cat 4 eye wall come ashore Thursday night on the more westerly track and wrecked everything from Delray Beach to St. Augustine, knocked down Mar-A-Lago, put the Kennedy Space Center under water and sank *four *freighters out of Jacksonville, we would not have been hearing of anything else all of Friday into Saturday morning. It did not happen so it was more of a “Florida sighs relief” line of reporting. But many news outlets DID maintain focus on the hurricane coverage and many ARE turning more attention to today’s much greater impact in South Carolina. Which still are not as big a media market as Miami/Orlando.
(*) Sandy knocked the last week of the 2012 election coverage off the front pages, remember? Why? Big superstorm hit right smack in the middle of the biggest media market and put Wall Street underwater in actual hydrological, not banking, terms. So THAT was news, for our press.
The Donald has been a misogynistic idiot for longer than four months, and he did win the first seven Republican primaries. This has been a media circus for quite some time now and I don’t see this dying down until after the first of the year. Even NFL TV ratings are down presumably because of the The Donald. 100,000 dead in Haiti is becoming commonplace anymore …
Clickbait … the new normal …
Fuckin’ news. Stuff needs to learn to wait its goddamn turn.
As I write this, this latest Donald Trump kerfuffle is the top story on the websites of Fox News, the WSJ, the New York Times, USA Today, the New York Post, the Washington Post, and, from my own UK perspective, the BBC, the Telegraph, and (of all things) the Financial Times.
CNN/MSNBC do not appear to be bucking a trend; if there’s a skew, it doesn’t appear to be theirs alone. Everyone’s in on it!
To clarify:
I mean proving the obvious doesn’t seem newsworthy. Trump didn’t just appear from the æther one day last year, he’s been a public figure for decades. I was certainly never under the impression that he lived a boring wholesome G-rated life. If you were, well, we are in the pit but I won’t judge.
This “story” does nothing but prove to his followers AND detractors that they were right all along about who he is and that they’re right to feel the way they do about him.
Hmm…good point. I hadn’t checked the other sites yet.
CNN/MSNBC are still in the tank for Clinton though (as they always are for the Democrats ;)).