So I'm cyber-thumbing through National Review Online and follow a link to a Hugh Hewitt (who names their kids like this?) and stopped dead in my tracks before I too became a honeyseeker.
The latest buzz from hive-think is that the media over-reported upon the trials and tribulations of the New Orleans residents with regards to the rape, looting and overall anarchy that ran rampant during the first few days after hurricane Katrina, and while some of the usual suspects have been pointing fingers at kindly old men who look really really thirsty and why hasn't someone given him anything to drink, here at Messenger we've been screaming since day fricking one about how dreadful the media coverage has been in NOT catching the big story.
Relief chopper goes down, sorry, we're looking for Sean Penn. Firefights throughout the city, thousands of out of state looters chasing the NO-police to parts unknown? Sorry, the Times is accusing Geraldo of nudging aside a National Guardsman and that's REAL story. And on, and on.
The horrors were not OVER-REPORTED, they were UNDER-REPORTED. Okay, conditions at the Dome were horrendous and the press made them seem even worse, but fer chrissake, WERE the toilets working? And now that the whingy little home football team is crying out loud that they've no place to call home, is ANYONE in the media, blogworld or otherwise, taking them to task for bitching about not having a Superdome when the sorry ass excuse for a stadium doesn't even feature hot and cold running water and toilets that work? Is ANYONE asking WHY such a facility fell apart?
They just don't get it. Reporters are supposed to find the news and tell us what they've found. But some bloggers, including the clueless at NRO who link to the same ole, same ole, seem to think that waiting for the smoke to clear and then hopping on the same tired bandwagon is what reporting is all about. This is the 24-hour-all-news-all-the-time generation, but we don't get anything CLOSE to news, we get stories, and there's a tremendous difference in the two. If it catches on, then it's worthy of talking about, but if it doesn't garner attention, then it isn't news.
Why DO I click into The Corner on NRO? Why DO I subject myself to what is nothing more than the local 'talent' sending insider-messages back and forth to one another? Because the medium IS the message, and a lot can be learned from them about why we don't have anyone reporting the news. They await the passing bandwagon and hop aboard, because everyone is so damned fearful of being the first to feature a story that hasn't been vetted for weeks until it's old news.
Go ahead, make an honest mistake now and then and correct yourself when wrong, but DO SOMETHING other than hash out the hivethink.
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