All the news that fits we print...

I am not making this up. ABC World News tonight did 16 seconds on the disaster in Japan and over 10 minutes on those poor kids.
Almost nothing about the fires.....I feel sorry for the kids too but how many kids died in Japan today????
Walter Cronkite is rolling in his grave.

^ Pathetic coverage, isn't it?

iluvtodd said:

^ Pathetic coverage, isn't it?

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All I can think of is the networks spent all this money to transport teams to the cave systems and dont have network people in Japan????? :confused2:
Covering human interest stories is inexpensive normally and the networks are all about making money with sensationalist, heart jerking stories just like tabloids
instead of doing real news (so they can pay their beautiful people anchors tens of millions(?). It would be interesting to see how real news networks like the CBC and BBC handle this.
Appollo 13 wasnt even covered like this cave story.

Any news organization anywhere can be criticized. They don’t cover the stories that we in our wisdom consider the most important (and of course we are wise ), not global enough, not local enough, not something. I would posit two other reasons:

1. *Nothing* was covered back in the day the way it is today with the 24 hour news cycle.

2. Underground trapping is one of our worst fears. Two mining disasters where we actually knew the miners were underground (Chilean miners, Quecreek) received the same coverage. I know this because I worked enforcing mining laws and followed it.

I don’t want to play “but I can name ten disasters worse than *this* disaster.” We have a capitalist system, the news stations follow it, and they give the people what they want. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves.

CoyoteChris said:

I am not making this up. ABC World News tonight did 16 seconds on the disaster in Japan and over 10 minutes on those poor kids.
Almost nothing about the fires.....I feel sorry for the kids too but how many kids died in Japan today????
Walter Cronkite is rolling in his grave.

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The trapped kids is a good on-going and *positive* story, something we desperately need these days. It's also logistically incredibly complex and, as el henry says, draws on many people's fears. There are constant updates! Kids are getting rescued! It's a fascinating story.

BBC and Al Jazeera are also extensively providing updates and coverage. Remember Baby Jessica? That dominated the news cycle for a good week in the 80's.

Anyway, nightly news shows only have a set period of time and need to get eyeballs. They're also dependent upon the footage that is being sent from affiliates or sources like AP to provide content. The question producers are asking is what stories do we need to get out, and what is the relevant information the audience needs and how long can that segment be, will it interest our audience?

Trapped children have always captured the public's attention, and media have always responded to this. It goes back all the way to the Kathy Fiscus story in 1949. Radio, print media, and the infant television networks all followed the futile attempts to save Kathy, and the nation was glued to the radio/tv til the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Fiscus

CoyoteChris said:

I am not making this up. ABC World News tonight did 16 seconds on the disaster in Japan and over 10 minutes on those poor kids.
Almost nothing about the fires.....I feel sorry for the kids too but how many kids died in Japan today????
Walter Cronkite is rolling in his grave.

Click to expand...

This was one of those stories that captured the entire world. If the boys had gone deeper into the cave there might have been a different outcome. Also if this had happened 5 or 10 years ago the technology to rescue them may not have been as sophisticated. Of course there's been worse disasters and the news doesn't always cover every tragedy, but it made people feel good to know this story at least had a happy outcome.

It was one of the few things people were willing to unite for... it's sadly all too rare these days.