Ducking a Tsunami?

World Business News blasts the nets for not covering the Tsunami enough last night…

There was a major breaking news story last night, the earthquake in the Pacific, and its tsunami warnings. The news networks were terrible at covering it. Wave’s hit New Zealands coasts, and America Samoa is effectively devestated in parts. All the way through, Fox News continued with O’Reilly’s pre-recorded show, and CNN kept with its capitol hill dribble. CNN International didn’t even bother to cover the story in any detail that it deserved.

Well, people have lost their lives. American Samoa is almost devestated by the disaster. The only television platform to pay any attention is TVNZ. A producer there has kept me in the loop thoughout, and he’s been a diamond source of information. Why have the news networks ignored this then?

I did not see last night’s coverage or lack thereof. But I did see it early yesterday afternoon before I had to leave. MSNBC was covering it for like a half hour straight, more than either CNN or FNC at that time. If anything it was too much too soon since the story had only broke like 40 minutes earlier and trying to get information out of a remote location like Samoa, which I have been to (as well as Tonga), that quickly, can be difficult if communication lines are fouled up or people are still figuring out what’s going on.

When dealing with remote locations like Samoa, which I don’t know if it even has local TV (I know Tonga does not and neither does Yap or Palau), getting video out quickly is difficult. Without the video or other pictures, it’s tough to put up any kind of news broadcast about the subject. Even this morning the video that I’ve seen of the damage in Samoa is scattershot at best.

This under-reporting charge was leveled early on in the Tsunami disaster of a few years ago. That didn’t last long as everyone went to the region to cover the multi-country devastation. Will that happen this time with Samoa? No. It won’t. The country is too remote, the devastation not extensive enough to justify it. That sounds harsh but it’s the reality of the situation. Maybe one or two outlets will send someone but don’t be expecting network anchors or reporters out there this time.

Update: The above was written when the death toll was around 30. Now it’s over 100. That changes things. And I was wrong. NBC put Lee Cowan on a plane overnight to get him to Samoa to report for Nightly News.