I missed home. It’s good to be home and back with my honey. Still trying to get over the time change…I was nearly out like a light by 9pm last night…and then I woke up a few times early this morning – simply because my body didn’t know any better.
I have pix from NC – I’ll post them in a little bit…
But first… NY Times printed this column on the state of media coverage. It’s honest, insightful and blunt.
“The real failure has been television’s. According to monitoring by the Tyndall Report, ABC News had a total of 18 minutes of the Darfur genocide in its nightly newscasts all last year – and that turns out to be a credit to Peter Jennings. NBC had only 5 minutes of coverage all last year, and CBS only 3 minutes – about a minute of coverage for every 100,000 deaths. In contrast, Martha Stewart received 130 minutes of coverage by the three networks.” – Nicholas D> Kristof wrote in the column: “All Ears for Tom Cruise, All Eyes on Brad Pitt.”
I want to change that. I know other people I’ve worked and studied with understand that. They also want to change the focus in the mainstream news media to harder news. Ever since my mass communication classes at Berkeley – professors and media professionals have chanted this refrain that the lack of money has led networks to curtail their international coverage. I don’t think that excuses them for keeping the American public in the dark. Kristof wrote: “If only Michael Jackson’s trial had been held in Darfur. Last month, CNN, Fox News, NBC, MSNBC, ABC and CBS collectively ran 55 times as many stories about Michael Jackson as they ran about genocide in Darfur.”
It’s disappointing. But it doesn’t change my goals to break into broadcast news as a producer. If one person can offer a different view, a different way of doing things – it’s a start.
Another point on media and people of color…..
In NC – we flipped on MSNBC and Courtney freaked out about seeing Mo Rocca giving his “Countdown” list of the hotties on Capitol Hill.
I think Mo is brilliant – interviewed and featured on CNN, VH1, NPR and more…so, yeah.
Then Tucker Carlson came on….His first topic for discussion: “a tale of two missing women.” Naturally, we have the blondie in Aruba…then there’s a missing black woman in Philadelphia. Her disapperance barely registered a blip on the news media radar.
“…black women from city centers, from urban areas who disappear get none of the coverage that like Natalee Holloway get, who are obviously from a different demographic. And, you know, it’s impossible to deny the truth of this,” Carlson said on the program.
I impressed “The Situation,” gave credit to Richard Blair for blogging about Latoyia Figueroa.
As of this morning – the missing woman from Philly got 231 hits on news.google.com. Natalee Holloway got 6,460 hits on that site.
Disappointing.
As the viewers, are you content with being kept in the dark about these issues? Are you asking critical questions? Are you letting your news stations get away with this apathetic attitude?