Anyone else ambivalent about watching the Haiti coverage?

[Withywindle]

At what point does it stop being important news reportage and start being exploitative disaster porn?


I lost it today watching the CNN story about a little girl buried under wreckage, and people saying they'd probably have to amputate her leg to get her out, and the controversy was all about whether they had enough anaesthesia....Meanwhile the camera is focused on her face while bystanders are giving her water.

Don't get me wrong, I would SO rather have this reported and televised than swept under the rug...but eventually I want to yell at reporters shoving cameras in victims' faces, DROP THE JOURNALIST BULLSHIT AND GIVE CPR ALREADY. But the complicity extends to us too, doesn't it?

[goclark]

1. I admire the journalists that are there and

as much as the images are repeated over and over, they are on the ground trying to let the world know what mass destruction has happened.

I watch and text money to the Red Cross.

I cried when I watched Dr. Gupta tend to the baby and save the child's life. Just that visual inspired me to text more money.

He gently took care of the little child and than gave him a kiss from his lips to the Babbie's head.

It was extremely touching ~ I'm not tired of watching because that is the least I can do to find out how the situation is improving for the brave people in Haiti.

[Withywindle]

3. I saw that clip too, with Sanjay Gupta and the baby.

:cry:

It's all definitely worth showing, if it moves people to dig deeper into their pockets to help (it's sure worked on me)

I just feel like, if that was my child or my mother lying there dead, if that was me in desperate need and panic, would I want a camera from a rich country's TV shoved in my face? I don't think I would. But if that's what it takes to rally up some money all over the world, well, OK, it serves a worthwhile purpose.

I just feel skeezy, seeing so much pain on my TV, where I have a roof over my head and food to eat, and TV anchors exclaiming all over it.

[roguevalley]

30. I want it to last as long as it can. I want these people to be remembered.

Its almost like if they aren't on, they don't exist. God bless them, all of them.

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. I had to turn off ABC News after about 30 seconds

That fucking shill Diane Sawyer kept saying she was in Afghanistan (she was on the ground in Haiti) I realize both places are fucked up and devastated, but does she really not know the difference between them?

I can't speak to CNN's coverage, since I'm once again cable-less at the moment. Not that I've watched much CNN since they took the hard right turn about 10 years ago anyway.

[dipsydoodle]

4. I watch avidly

in the sincere hope that something is done urgently with all of the aid which has already reached there.

So far I / they have lucked out. It's quite appalling. :(

[Withywindle]

5. I hope to see that too.

But the thing is, there is no fucking infrastructure or government, at all. The best we can hope for, at the moment, in terms of accountability, is Anderson Cooper on the back of a pickup truck saying, "Oh look at this!"

All I ask for is that my meager donations go to help keep ONE needy person alive one day longer. Meager, but of course it counts to that person.

[pokercat999]

6. I stopped watching TV "news" sometime in early 2009, I

haven't missed it at all. I do listen to NPR to and from work about 30 min each way and of course I read a lot of economic news and opinion online. But I couldn't keep watching the so called news on TV. It has become just another profit center and they'll say just about anything to get another pair of eyes for the advertisers, no thank you. Same way with TV weather, who ever reports the worst weather coming must get the most "eyes" cause they seem to be trying to out do one another in reporting the worst possible forecast, 1 to 2 inches of snow becomes a possible 7 to 8 by evening and you actually get a dusting if anything.

[ixion]

8. yep, I stopped in 2003

and have been much happier for doing so. I no longer spend the TV time screaming at the television.

[seabeyond]

10. oct 2004 here. nt

[ixion]

7. I mentioned my ambivilance towards this on a different thread yesterday

and was roundly criticized, and ultimately the sub-thread was removed.

Yeah, I agree with you.

[KittyWampus]

18. doubtful you phrased the sentiment as gracefully as this OP. And I wonder if you'd say the same

about footage and photos of Iraq or Afghanistan since those are Obama's war and Haiti is a natural earthquake.

[ixion]

24. No, and indeed that was my point

that while all the glad-handing was going on, we were attacking Pakistan and the killing raged on elsewhere.

Oh, and are you capable of making a constructive comment without insults? :shrug:

[gleaner]

9. I am ambivalent about watching ...

because it scares me to death. I have ridden out a lot of earthquakes in my life here in California and didn't think much of it. Then in 1994 we had one of the worst quakes I have ever experienced. Nothing as bad as what as happening in Haiti, but pretty bad. It was the first time I was ever really terrified by an earthquake. Hearing it coming sounding like a freight train because I had awakened suddenly about five minutes before it began. The motion, the noise as the house tried to tear itself apart, so loud I couldn't hear my husband in the next room yelling at me to hang on to a door jamb. The lights went out. I have never seen it so dark. A piece of furniture fell on me and I was trying with all my strength to keep from taking its whole weight. It was like the world was ending.

I can't bring myself to watch more than a bit of what is happening. Our 1994 earthquake was not so much compared to this, but we are overdue for a much bigger earthquake. I want to help and I will, but I can't see too much of it at a time or I feel like I am losing my mind. I know it is selfish. Someone has to witness things that change the world forever, and this will, but I can't manage too much of it at a time.

[mwb970]

11. Once we know what is happening, is wallowing in it still "news"?

Every time I turn on a cable news channel (other than Fox "News") there is Haiti coverage, but they mostly show the same snippets of suffering over and over again. What does seeing this tell us? Is it "news"?

:shrug:

[stray cat]

12. no one makes you watch a channel

[lunatica]

13. Some reporters think their job is tell and show the truth

And some Americans are too sensitive, or maybe too desensitized to face it.

Yet most will go see the most graphically violent movies of people sawing their legs off, or blood spattering and gut spilling 'action' movies.

I think the reason we're still waging two wars is because we haven't been allowed to see these types of images. Had we seen them both wars would be ended right now. Hell! We weren't allowed to even see the coffins of our dead soldiers when Bush was President. We weren't allowed to see anything they and the military didn't allow. That's why they had 'in-bedded' journalists. It was up to the media to whip us into patriotic fervor to support the wars.

I'd rather see the truth.

[Arkansas Granny]

14. I have not watched any of the network or cable coverage regarding Haiti.

Instead, I watch the PBS NewsHour and they skip the sensational, emotional coverage and give you facts and interviews with people who can provide actual information about what's going on on the ground and those who are responsible for directing the efforts being made.

[KharmaTrain]

15. It's When The Story Changes To Personalities...

We're not quite there yet...but as usual the corporate media is sure to try to manipulate this story into one they can control or exploit.

It's when you see all the cable "personalities" rush down for their photo ops with those "suffering heathens" and they all start promoting how their network was the "first" or had the "most" coverage.

Right now the pictures are "too good"...the collapsed buildings, the bodies piled up, the visual pain...but that will soon end and then it will be attempts to milk the story for what's left to exploit, then they'll be onto the "next big thing". I suspect a week from now, this tragedy will be "old history"...the short attention span moves along...

[Jennicut]

16. I think it is necessary to show us the truth about what has happened there.

We are very desensitized to these kinds of images but I think some journalists think it is part of their job to show us things as they really are. I saw some of the Haitians speaking to some of the journalists on CNN yesterday and many seemed to want to talk about what happened, for them it can be a bit of a release to share their story, a sort of catharsis. If anything, it can move people to donate money for the Haitians and that is a good thing.

[bdamomma]

23. the poorest country in the world Haiti is, I just hope those supplies

get to the surviviors before tempers flare.

[KittyWampus]

17. My friend, I watched that segment to. They got that little girl out. So these are real life

heroic efforts and tragedy with small successes and big ones. Some failures.

Trials and tribulations.

I think ambivalence is the same.

But don't you quietly pray or send healing energy as you watch? I do.

[Withywindle]

29. Oh, that's good to know. I'm so glad. Thank you.

I do quietly pray and send healing energy as I watch. I just get overwhelmed by the magnitude of it.

[Johonny]

19. I guess it is news and you don't have to watch

Tune in and see an up date and leave. You don't have to watch it 24/7 and have it turn into disaster porn if you don't want to.

[Xenotime]

20. M$M rule #1: if it bleed, it leads.

[pipi_k]

21. I finally lost it the other day

When CNN's Ivan Watson was wandering around a makeshift hospital/morgue and there were images of people suffering the most painful injuries. I knew it would be graphic, and I was OK until he came to a bench on which there was a dead baby.

Covered up except for the arms and legs.


That's one image I could have done without seeing. It broke my heart. Made me feel like I might vomit. It took a long time before I felt better, although the mental image still haunts me.


So yes, it probably helps for people to see what rescuers are up against down there, but there are some things that are just too painful to see. :(

[bdamomma]

22. it does get heart retching to see, the supplies have to get to them

structurally everything has been damaged, look at the dock they need heavy equipment to make the roads passable.

[earth mom]

25. I don't watch t.v. noise, er, news, anymore. But I have watched clips & read news stories online.

After what happened with Katrina and how those people were totally screwed over and treated like trash, I just don't know how much I can stomach of this tragedy without my blood pressure going through the roof.

Mainly it just pisses me off to know that most of the donations that middle class people can ill afford to give will be stolen or squandered in the end and those people will NOT be better off when all is said and done.

We saw the hell and corruption first hand with Katrina; this is no different. :argh: :cry:

[Hidden Stillness]

26. Very Mixed Feelings; the Coverage has Been Very Uneven

I think the coverage has swung back and forth between very good and moving, to outrageous and exploitive. The first night, after the earthquake had happened late Tuesday afternoon, that night, much of the coverage was very informative--with descriptions about specific areas, why the building materials and codes were inadequate and why things crumbled, descriptions of the population, economic levels, and much of it was really heartfelt and respectful. I felt I was getting an introduction to the country a little bit, which is what people want for an orientation. Anderson Cooper, for example, has apparently been there many times and has a real love for the people and for the beautiful area, and gave many really good descriptions of specific areas and buildings, the kindness of the people, etc.

After that, as coverage went on, it was like they reverted to TV over-production and sponsor-directed audience-grabber tactics again, as usual--what I sometimes call "fashion photography," angrily--like the held close-ups of near-dead people with dust all over their faces, and you shout at the TV "Quit violating these people you fucking bastards!" as they slowly zoom in and in, and it goes on for seconds--to commercial! Sickening. I hate the total turnover of coverage to visuals--that is when you get the worst of the "violations" as I always think of them, of people.

Every now and then there is a very moving story, such as CNN coverage of the increasing numbers of dead bodies everywhere, and how people are not equipped to deal with it, so there have been many mass burials and placing of bodies in unrelated crypts, and the people are not identified, just to get rid of them. Coverage also of people with very bad injuries who have to wait and wait, and many die who should have been easily saved; that is very sad and moving.

I want more actual backgroud information, history, and I am not hearing any of it. The backgroud of the oppression of slavery, economic sanctions by the U.S. and etc., the murderous corruption of the Duvaliers, some of which I kind of remember, global exploitive trade that continues to kill, etc.--I want more real information explaining things, but there is none. An answer to the "simple" question, Why is Haiti so desperately poor, when all island Nations next to it are so much better off? I heard an interesting comment last night on Charlie Rose by I think it was the Haitian Ambassador to the U.S., who mentioned the huge effort going on now, and said there should then, when this crisis is over, be a new Marshall Plan for Haiti, by the U.S., the UN, etc., as there was for Europe etc. after WWII; a great idea.

[AngryOldDem]

27. I think the question is, when do you stop watching?

When can't you simply take any more? The pain and suffering can put you on overload. I agree it's time to begin reporting the other aspects of this, like the civil unrest, relief efforts, etc., but I think we're all beginning to feel emotional fatigue because we have never (at least not in a long while) seen such a catastrophe up close. Doesn't mean we don't care; just means it's getting too much to handle. (And yes, a part of me feels like a shitheel for saying so, as I watch from my comfortable chair in the living room.) I think all experts suggest backing away for awhile when you realize you're having these feelings.

My personal issue with the coverage -- especially on CNN and MSNBC -- are the ad placements for the Bahamas and Jamaican tourism boards. It's dissonant in the extreme to go from pictures of the injured, dead, and dying to that of pristeen beaches and happy people having good times. I wish the boards would pull their ads for a respectful period of time.

[ljm2002]

28. Hmmm...

...when I was watching that coverage, the reporter mentioned that he did give her water, which she had asked for while the rescuers were sawing at the metal rod which tended to frighten her. And they also described, but did not show, that one of the rescuers had to remove a body part from right next to her while performing the rescue.

I'm glad for the coverage, as you say, no reason to sweep it under the rug.