JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog Monday, April 16th, 2007

Well.. 80 people died in a car bomb today in Iraq. It got 10 second coverage on the 24 hour news channels, and they they were back to showing the same footage and same coverage of the US shooting over and over and over. If 32 people dying in the US is a tragedy, wouldn't 80 dying in Iraq ALSO be a tragedy, rather than just reporting a number and moving on? That's the danger here. When Katrina happened and also the Tidal Wave a few years ago, there were earthquakes in other areas of the world taking 10's of thousands of lives. But because there was a supermodel invovled in the tidal wave and because Katrina became a race issue in the US, that was far bigger news. It's not the endless coverage that bothers me.. it's the flippant reports that "17,000 people died in an earthquake in a far away land we don't care about, but here's what Britney Spear's did to her hair.. we're live on scene" type of coverage and mentality that really disturbs me. It's societal hypocrisy. The spent more time dealing with Anna Nicole Smith than some of the biggest losses of human life ever. They ignore genecides in Africa. The ignore thousands and thousands killed by monsoons. But let Paris Hilton go commando at a Hollywood party.. and let's get a new crew there right away and talk it into the ground. It's sad.

Brian