Please don’t misunderstand- hurricanes are most certainly newsworthy, Ike far more than most, and in fact even in light of the election and the war, etc., Ike is in fact the most important news story in the U.S. due to the millions of lives affected directly and many millions more affected indirectly by potential damage. I’ve no problem with the news channels devoting most of their screentime to it. What I pit, though, is why they ALWAYS feel compelled to send reporters to stand on the beaches WHEN A LETHAL HURRICANE IS ON THE WAY AND MANDATORY EVACUATION HAS BEEN CALLED!
“How’s it looking out there Bob?”
Bob: “Well… the waves are really high and the wind is really strong and I just saw it snap a light pole in half…”
“That’s great that’s great… think it’s really a hurricane?”
Bob: “Oh yeah, I’m pretty fuckin’ sure…”
"Well keep up the great coverage. In other news, Sarah Palin’s contest to name her new pet squirrel met with protest from…
Bob: “Tell my wife I love her…”
“…will do… from PETA today when…”
I swear that they actually want to get one of these guys killed. They’re a potential human sacrifice to the ratings god.
Anderson Cooper made his bones by being on-spot with Katrina. It’s not gonna happen twice- he really doesn’t need to cover another major disastrous hurricane cuz he’s COVERED a major disastrous hurricane. Geraldo of course is bound and determined he’s going to bag the next one and hopefully the feeling is mutal to the hurricane but no such luck yet, but who I feel really sorry for are the Anderson wannabes who aren’t already famous and haven’t already made hundreds of millions of dollars from a career long sleazefest like Geraldo. (And frankly Anderson Cooper himself is tremendously overrated- yeah, Katrina coverage was great, but he’s at least as much fluff as substance and if he didn’t have unique attractive looks [though I still maintain he looks inbred [even though he isn’t]- like a prince who could bleed to death from a shaving mishap] and Gloria Vanderbilt’s boy to boot he’d just be another talking head.)
Anyway, we all know what a hurricane looks like: really fuckin’ big waves, lots’ of fuckin’ water, lot’s of bad things happening all around. I understand if you want to put live webcams there held down with 10 ton weights and cables, because there is most definitely some curiosity, but let the poor reporters get the hell out of there!!! (Oh yeah, I know most are probably there voluntarily because they’re wanting to get their name known, but even so my schadenfreude actually ends at wanting to hear a memorial service for one of them [while every other network says “Damn! I knew we should have stood our’s on that corner! This is the last time they’re gonna out bodycount us- when’s that volcano in Indonesia supposed to blow? Send every damned 2nd rung reporter and intern we got.”
Speaking of Cooper, I don’t even understand why he’s there (though at least he has sense enough to be in Houston, a little further out of harm’s way, though there’s never anyway of telling what the hell these things are going to do [Katrina sent tornadoes into the Georgia mountains, the first in over a century]). It’s really okay, you can sit this one out. The whole “Katrina” and “Bernie Shaw live from Baghdad blitz” thing is not really going to happen, chances are, so unless you’re there to let the air out of Geraldo’s Humvee’s tires you’re not really performing a service.)
Sorry, discombobulated, but this just irks the hell out of me when there’s a catastrophe like this that hasn’t even happened yet. Send a crew to Fort Worth perhaps, or somewhere that’s way out of the front lines, because there’s going to be no shortage whatsoever in chances to get pics and man-on-the-flooded-street interviews once it’s over but you’re not helping anyone by just standing around where the words “certain death” were literally used in the warning.
Rant over.
