And although this post may look like it was done on Thursday morning, it's actually nearly midnight here.
First off, I have to say that either American news networks have much to answer for in terms of mawkish coverage or the Australian news operations have just been really bored for a long time because there is virtually wall-to-wall Hurricane Katrina-meets-September 11th coverage here.
Coverage that is low on information and astoundingly high on exploitation. (Although to be a touch fair, one of the presenters on Sunrise, did actually admit on air that they were getting exploitative--Would Matt Lauer do that? I think not.) Exploitation with no real merit, except to make people feel guilt--even the Queenslanders who have been flooded for quite some time are expressing guilt. It's battle of the natural disasters!
Listen, I'm not going to be completely cold and deny the news-worthiness of the event, particularly in a country where nature can be deadly and quick to strike, but where are the minds of the news directors? We are bombarded with figures of how much the Bushfire Appeal Fund is racking up (certainly bound to go up higher after Nine's umpteen hour telethon has finished), but very little on how to contact people missing or even a reminder on common sense such as "the house is not worth dying for."
No, we have an endless loop of some sodding koala getting fed water and presenters and reporters reaching into the nearest thesaurus to find new ways to say "devastated." Is this really news or the latest season of Big Brother on a massive scale?
On the positive side of things, the news coverage is beginning ever so slowly to delve into the practical side of things, like banks that were charging mortgage fees to fire victims and how the government has been dragging its feet in implementing a fire warning system. More importantly, it is very refreshing to see a nation where the majority of the populace is not losing it in front of the cameras in the face of tragedy. (This has the added bonus of making the news operations look even more like sharks, because the locals just won't cry, and further illustrates how bad the coverage is.)
I can only hope that whatever media watchdogs that are in place will take the private networks to task on this. (The ABC has been rather smarter than its commercial mates.)
1 comment:
i totally agree. my favorite was one of the newspaper frontpage headlines (in gigantic size font) that read "but what are we going to tell the children?" talk about laying it on thick.
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