Much has been said of a society with 24-hour-cable news. Those of us with cable know more about what is going on in the world faster than ever before, and with images. Yet, at about midnight last night, as I was flipping through CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, and FOX futilely trying to get information on the Israel/Lebanon conflict, all I got were repeated broadcasts of Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Rita Cosby (I think - I had given up on MSNBC by then), and Brit Hume. Israel was bombing the airport in Beirut and Hezbollah was sending missiles back and no one was covering it. These cable news channels have swelling music scores and dramatic graphics to indicate breaking news, and they do announce breaking news often, yet when the news is huge but at an inconvenient time, there is nothing.
Now, I must say that CNN did interrupt Anderson's re-run for a little while and switched to the international broadcast and FOX did put a thick red bar announcing that the Beirut airport had been hit, but the attention given was sorely lacking compared to the magnitude of the situation. Also, I will admit, there was information available online and there was no practical need for me to know everything that was going on in the Middle East before I went to bed. Still, I was disappointed that when stark news came at a time when the celebrity anchors were at home, the priority of the networks was to show their perfectly taped graphics-laden, musical-score enhanced programs rather than cover a legitimate crisis in an explosive area of the world.
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1 comment:
Jessie, I have been writing while you've been away. :)
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