Saturday, January 16, 2010

Big Dan's Big News Jan 16, 2010

Haiti earthquake coverage - MSNBC & CNN blowing away "NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME" FOX "news":

CNN: this really makes the Haiti earthquake hit home - must-see tear-jerker of little girl who was alive and they were rescuing her...and she died!

"Needless Deaths" in Haiti



CNN's Anderson Cooper is doing just as good of a job on the Haiti earthquake as he did on Katrina and the Tsunami. MSNBC and CNN's coverage of the Haiti earthquake is BLOWING AWAY FOX "news"s coverage. Rightwing media just doesn't do "HUMANITARIAN DISASTERS", it's not in their repertoire to be human. FOX "news" is "NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME" when it comes to stories with global significance.

MORE Haiti earthquake coverage:





During a humanitarian crisis, you can count on the HATE and IGNORANCE of rightwing media to embarrass the good people of the United States.



U.K. Guardian: Rush Limbaugh enters race to the bottom on Haiti. That Rush Limbaugh could claim the Haitian tragedy was 'made to order' for Obama shows how crazed the US right has become

Rush Limbaugh/Clear Channel must be held accountable for racial, sexual slur and hate tirade on Haitians

Rush Limbaugh: Don't Donate to Haiti Victims

Maybe Limbaugh has laid what was left of his credibility to rest.

Roger Ebert: Rush Limbaugh should be "horse-whipped" for his comments.

Tuesday's devastating earthquake in Haiti continues to bring grim news. Estimated death counts range from the tens of thousands to more than 100,000. Haiti's capital and largest city, Port-au-Prince, sustained massive damage: its hospitals -- all of them -- destroyed or rendered unusable, the presidential palace and a United Nations mission flattened. Damage to Haiti's airport, seaport, roads, power supplies, and other utilities has exacerbated the suffering and hindered relief efforts.

Public and media reaction to the tragedy has been swift and in many cases admirable. Record-setting donations have poured into the Red Cross -- $4 million via text message alone. Some 30,000 people contributed another $2.6 million to Clinton Foundation relief efforts in just 24 hours. Much of this support can be attributed to the quick and powerful distribution -- by both old media and new -- of news, information, and photos relating to the earthquake. Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have been a valuable source of information, as have news organizations that scrambled to cover the tragedy. (The Business Insider has a good round-up of those efforts, with links to several useful resources.)

But much of the conservative media elite has reacted quite differently.

Fox News Channel's highest-rated shows, for example, all but ignored the disaster, according to a new Media Matters study:

On January 13, Fox News' three top-rated programs for 2009 -- The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, and Glenn Beck -- devoted a combined total of less than 7 minutes of coverage to the earthquake in Haiti, instead choosing to air such things as Beck's hour-long interview with Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reilly's discussion of Comedy Central host Jon Stewart, and Sean Hannity's advocacy for Massachusetts candidate Scott Brown's Senate campaign.

REPORT: Top Fox News programs devote scant coverage to Haiti earthquake

FOLLOW-UP REPORT: Beck and Hannity again devoted little coverage to earthquake in Haiti

LA Times: Fox drops the ball in Haiti coverage

Outside of Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, Fox News doesn't do foreign coverage. Period. But Fox News' abdication of its news gathering responsibilities is not new. The cabler did the same thing in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.

FLASHBACK: Fox News gets blown away - Fox's weak coverage of the tsunami in South Asia proves that when it comes to stories with global significance, the nasty, partisan network isn't ready for prime time.

Fox News and Haiti

O'Reilly ignores Haiti to cover whaling, wild horses and Jon Stewart

Fox Nation equates temporary protections for Haitians in the U.S. with "Amnesty" for "Illegal Aliens"

MSNBC's top rated shows SMASH FOX "news"s top rated shows on Haiti earthquake coverage:

MSNBC's Matthews/Olbermann/Maddow vs. FOX's Beck/O'Reilly/Hannity on Haiti earthquake coverage:



MSNBC's Keith Olbermann SLAMS rightwing media on Haiti:



Rush Limbaugh's latest Psycho Talk on Haiti -  "U.S. military is 'MEALS ON WHEELS'":



Limbaugh: Obama will use Haiti to boost credibility with "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country"



Rush Limbaugh looks for a job.




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