Differences in Hurricane coverage

[Stravo]

I've been watching Univision on and off this week for Hurricane Ivan Coverage because quite frankly the spanish news station seem to have better coverage of the Carribean in particular Cuba where you rarely see American networks giving on the street reports.

The most glaring difference I saw to date on the coverage was the attention given to the damage in Jamaica. American news networks gave us various aerial photos and footage. Univision last night was on the ground inside a small shanty village that was literally swept away by the storm surge when Ivan passed. They interviewed three women, all of whom had sons drown in the surge, one woman had 4 children and the camera showed her trying to comfort her only remaining son after Ivan passed.

Fuck, I was horrified. The pain in these poor women's faces, as if they weren't in enough misery living in houses made out of corrugated tin in the middle of what looked like a swamp, then you have this happen. They even showed one woman who finding the corpse of her young son floating among debris, the sight still haunts me of the young body floating face down in a pile of tin and debris.

Why don't we see this on American coverage of the storm? All we here about is the devastation caused, the fact that Jamaica was 'spared' Ivan's full wrath and the running status report on what resorts and hotels have been damaged.

They keep telling us Grenada has been devastated. Have we seen up close and personal stories?

In Jamaica for instance, is it pressure from the Jamaican government not to show the seemier side of their isalnd, to always portray the happy go lucky Jamaica of the Nike commercials and "Come to Jamaica" ads? Is it because the networks here just don't care? How often do I have to see Floridians battening down the hatches and not a single shot of people who have already been struck by Ivan to see what devastation truly is. Instead of dead children we see sinking Yachts in their marinas.

[Darth Wong]

American news networks have decided that it's unethical to show graphic depictions of death, suffering, tragedy, etc. for some reason. Apparently, dehumanizing tragedy into numbers and aerial photos is more "ethical" as far as they're concerned; it probably has something to do with continually being accused of "exploiting tragedy for ratings".

The net effect, however, is to turn any suffering outside the United States into mere statistics. You have the same phenomenon in Palestine, where CNN might report 35 accused terrorists dead in an airstrike and show a clip of a politician talking whereas a foreign news correspondent might be talking to a young boy who lost his mother in the blast or taking videos of children running from shellfire. Whether it's done for political purposes or some bizarre sense of "cultural sensitivity" or reluctance to "exploit" is questionable, but the effect is the same.

Inside America, they would probably do the same thing if politicians didn't WANT to "exploit tragedy for personal gain".