February 1, 2003
Shuttle News
This morning on the way to the service station to bring the Kia in for an oil change, I heard on NPR about the shuttle catastrophe. While all of this is very sad and the situation is one that no one ever wants to occur I am again sickened by our media coverage of these events.
Initially they feel no remorse for annoying the families of the possible (probable) victims before these poor people have even found out the complete details.
They show us the same stupid footage of the crash over and over again as if there is going to be some new nugget of information that they can squeeze out of this 5-second clip.
They feel the need to mention every 5 seconds (in between the 5 seconds of footage) that this is not a terrorist attack. If this is not a terrorist attack, then why is it important to mention it?
When Challenger exploded, the media were visibly upset, crying and reacting like human beings. In this situation, they are proving how heartless they really have become by remaining stone-faced and distant.
The only useful information that I have received about this tragedy was from the BBC, one of the few news sources that I have recently decided shows some of the highest levels of journalistic quality in developing their material for the airwaves.