Tsunami of crap
Why, oh Why do we have local TV news? And what in God's name do they think they're doing covering a Tsunami that hit ASIA? Guys, hint: If you have to take an AIRPLANE to cover the story, it's probably a) not 'local" and b) beyond your poor power to add insight. Which brings me to me second point:
Why, oh Why do the local news people insist on covering the number of Americans and Eurpoeans killed by this thing? Dozens of thousands of local people (meaning people who lived in the areas hit by the Tsunami, not people who live here locally who happened to be there on vacation) were killed, and we have to tally the rich Westerners? Clearly, this is beacuse of one of two things, possibly both: Those covering the story suffer from the "gee, there are so many of them there brown people, what's a few dozen thousand? Doesn't seem like much of a story to me" problem. Or they think (more likely) that the only way their audience will care is if the story covers how people like their audience members were impacted. Based on my rant of yesterday, maybe the news people are right on this. Afterall, Growing up Gotti. But I doubt it. I think it's more about the fact that the news people are too lazy to try to tell a more complex story. The "how some white people's vacation got ruined" story is a slam dunk next to tackling the complexity of "This is where Sri Lanka is. These are Sri Lankans. This is what their life is like. This is what the tsunami did to them." The latter, for example, would require more than 120 seconds to fully communicate, as well as footage not readily available from the AP. So perhaps what we have is laziness disguised as cultural arrogance.
Yes, Yes, the local news folk are trying to find a "local angle" on the big news story of the day, so their only choice, IF they are to cover the story is to do the culturally insentive thing. I'd rather see them stick to local car wrecks, high school sports, and tomorrow's weather.
Why, oh Why do the local news people insist on covering the number of Americans and Eurpoeans killed by this thing? Dozens of thousands of local people (meaning people who lived in the areas hit by the Tsunami, not people who live here locally who happened to be there on vacation) were killed, and we have to tally the rich Westerners? Clearly, this is beacuse of one of two things, possibly both: Those covering the story suffer from the "gee, there are so many of them there brown people, what's a few dozen thousand? Doesn't seem like much of a story to me" problem. Or they think (more likely) that the only way their audience will care is if the story covers how people like their audience members were impacted. Based on my rant of yesterday, maybe the news people are right on this. Afterall, Growing up Gotti. But I doubt it. I think it's more about the fact that the news people are too lazy to try to tell a more complex story. The "how some white people's vacation got ruined" story is a slam dunk next to tackling the complexity of "This is where Sri Lanka is. These are Sri Lankans. This is what their life is like. This is what the tsunami did to them." The latter, for example, would require more than 120 seconds to fully communicate, as well as footage not readily available from the AP. So perhaps what we have is laziness disguised as cultural arrogance.
Yes, Yes, the local news folk are trying to find a "local angle" on the big news story of the day, so their only choice, IF they are to cover the story is to do the culturally insentive thing. I'd rather see them stick to local car wrecks, high school sports, and tomorrow's weather.
posted by Kenneth at 7:54 PM
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