Are our bleeding hearts drying up?

[brisdrake]

It seems 2011 is the year for the natural disaster, if I held any belief that the world was going to end at 2012 I'd have a pretty good case to climb atop of my soapbox right now and start preaching. Floods, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis... good ol mother nature seems to have it out for us at the moment and the media is in a bonanza of shock and

Comments

[chrystena]

dont think people dont care because the news dosent, youve seen all the journals and twitters from people drumming up support.
In the new stations eyes, watching people clean up and calmly putting their lives back together isnt news , they want people crying screaming,(dying if possible and on camera would be great!) things happening, which is why they keep cutting to potential tsunami sites just in case something happens that they can "scoop" floods and fires are way more interesting cause things are constantly happening.

In NZ the coverage stopped after a couple of days cause the poor rescue crews dragging out dead bodies isnt as newsworthy as possible rescues of live people.

People care, TV stations never have unless its "News"

[ozkangaroo]

The thing is, Whilst it was happening. IE the wave was coming in live. (45 mins after the quake)
Myself and Macroceli watched people being crushed and killed in their cars. Live on television.

The only two channels broadcasting ANYTHING to do with current events where ABC (24 hour news channel) and SBS.
It was deal or no deal and Kids afternoon programs on every other channel.

I guess because they are not Australian/NZ, news doesn't deem it worthy.
Plane crashed in NYC, kills 1000's they'll broadcast that on every channel.
Quake goes off in Christchurch, kills 100's. they'll broadcast that on every channel
Giant wave sweeps a country LIVE, kills 1000's. Eh, Antique Roadshow is much better.

My point is, there is no "showing people cleaning up" it was a live disaster unfolding before our eyes. It was certainly "exciting" for news programs to show these things.

So I do understand what Dragon is getting at.

[chrystena]

thats what I said...

[mistystriker]

Did you know there's severe flooding in parts of the US too?

Amazingly I didn't until finding a stream of Sky News online whose current tsunami/Japan coverage was coming from the US.

The local news always has a bias, thus why I gave up on TV ages ago and stick to online news streams.

[creamatian]

>When George Takei and Alyssa Milano are strumming up more relief appeal on their twitters than the Australian news... there is something seriously wrong in this world

Ehhh. Channels 7, 10 and 9 have always been about shirking actual news in favour for hugbox stories and kept the "doom and gloom" stories to a tiny scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen. Apparently the soccer mum demographic wasn't happy with news instead of discussions about whether or not they should track their kids movements online.

I'd rather rely on the internet then TV channels which can be controlled *tin foil hat*

[oiseucalypt]

I don't think this a real recent phenomenon. RestOfWorld only gets coverage on a slow news day, and even then only about 30 seconds if there is not a 'human story' behind it that will get front page views.

Unless it is Australia/NZ/USA/UK of course. But I suspect it will be similar for various other regions of the world too.

The whole 'capture and repeat footage of death & destruction' does get rather sickening though. We don't really need to see it live like that, it is not a bloody action movie.

[cabcat]

You know how it goes, the further away it is the less news worthy it is. I have been following it on the internet and you really can overdose on disaster, I did during the floods. Plus people can't connect the further away from their backyard it is, unless they have family there.

Hang on you don't still watch tv do you? What a strange place to get news from.