News stories being pushed on CNN’s homepage last night
Recently, the 24-hour television news networks have been engrossed by the Haitian catastrophe. The initial preoccupation with horror stories from the island nation following a magnitude 7 earthquake gave way to brief history lessons educating their audience on Haiti’s past (and probably its geographic location). Then the media shifted gears to soliciting donations for the relief effort. Now the focus seems to be on feel-good stories of miraculous rescues and of the vast sums raised by their altruistic viewers.
CNN’s Editor’s picks from last night
From a cynical perspective, what’s going on here seems clear: The news media is capitalizing on increased viewership due to ephemeral interest in Haiti’s misery while simultaneously being able to show off their humanitarian credentials, and their viewers are watching stories about how great they themselves are for contributing to the relief effort. It’s a circle jerk: the news media gets its ratings; their audience gets to feel good about themselves; everyone cums out a winner.
(Hat tip to Tumor Attitude for the YouTube videos)
While this furious mutual masturbation goes on, Iran remains a battleground. The above video depicts an Iranian police officer in a truck running over a female protester during an anti-government demonstration in Tehran on December 27th, 2009. Pro-government forces did not consistently have the upper hand throughout the day: The video below depicts rock-wielding youths pushing back riot police after the shootings of several protesters at the same rally.
Most of the foreign news media has been ousted from Iran and the lack of first-hand reporting would be an excuse for the lapse in coverage, but these networks already incorporate social media (like the above YouTube videos) into their work. As the Guardian recently reported, CNN has the most extensive coverage of the situation in Haiti right now because of their citizen journalist program, iReport. So why aren’t we hearing more about what’s going on in Iran? Maybe it’s because while places like CNN aren’t milking the disaster of the month, they’re too busy reporting on viral videos.
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Arv, I hate you and all your posts suck because i wish i had your job and all i do is write shitty comments about people on websites that i wish i was a part of but cant be because i dont actually do shit. So, in conclusion, i hate Arv and I hate everything and i beat off way too much and my mom pays for my internet connection which makes me feel even more weird and bitter and i will always post comments about Arv and how much he sucks no matter what he does on this website I wish i had his life and I hate myself for it. And I wish Gavin was my friend, but he doesnt even seem to notice how funny and brilliant my internet comments are so i think im just going to go and masturbate.
signed,
your average sbtvc commenter
01.25.10 at 9:42 am
also ‘first’.
01.25.10 at 9:42 am
children of richest 1% “riot”. hipsters demand more coverage, bored of haitian mess
01.25.10 at 9:44 am
all Haiti all the time.
what sells more.
send your money and watch politicians wave from their cars and the poor live in tents.
01.25.10 at 9:55 am
@Coke Ennyday: Way too many syllables. It should be 5-7-5.
01.25.10 at 10:35 am
coke ennyday, poetry just on sunday
01.25.10 at 10:50 am
We live in a passionate time. I never had the energy, interest, time, desire, motivation… to riot when I was young. Of course, TV was better then.
01.25.10 at 10:53 am
beej = Arv = bitch
01.25.10 at 11:46 am
“everyone cums out a winner” rofl
01.25.10 at 12:16 pm
This would have been a reasonable article, but for your first comment puff piece.
01.25.10 at 1:12 pm
Sock-puppets are annoying.
01.25.10 at 1:37 pm
iran has been and always will be a battlefield. people will tire of haiti soon enough and we can all pick back up right where we left off with with the middle east. and whoever said a circle jerk is a bad thing?
01.25.10 at 1:40 pm
good point Arv- way to compare an incident from dec 27th to one on jan 13th???
and if i hear you mention the situation one more time I’m gonna lose it… wait, what? this is the first time you’ve mentioned it? well, who the fuck are you- cnn or something?
01.25.10 at 1:55 pm
Good article, thanks
01.25.10 at 4:43 pm
Aw…I can see that Arv is feeling a little tender these days. Hmmmmm…Are you ragging on CNN because they married you know who last week? Great way to lick the boss’ balls, eh what? But yeah, I agree with you. Journalism is cynical.
01.25.10 at 6:55 pm
This guy only cares about Iran because they slipped him ten bucks to huff some Glade and do shirtless pushups in front of a webcam.
01.26.10 at 6:38 am
Now the Lat.Am. Development Bank saying the quake’s destruction is double the value of the country’s entire annual economy, and is the most destructive natural disaster (per capita) ever.
So the fact that there are problems Iran (our official enemy) means we should “shut up” about what may be the most immiserated place on earth right now, which happens to be in large part due to our own govts. actions?
About that history of Haiti…
n 1804 a third of the Haitians were killed in their uprising against exceptionally brutal slavery, where the average imported slave survived only 10 years, and those who displeased their masters were tortured to death.
They became the first abolitionist country in the world, and were punished by an international embargo (led by the US) and the French demand that Haitians themselves should “compensate” French aristocrats for their lost “property.” The money demanded was to 150 million gold francs, about 250% of the total cost the US had just paid France to acquire nearly half the modern US.
By the time of the slave results most of Haiti’s famous forests were gone, leading to the devastating erosion and extreme poverty that bedevils the country today.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100216/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_earthquake
This story from AP only hints at the 20th century and the role of the US as continual destructor of Haiti’s potential, leading up even to the last few years and the US-backed coups to secure the liquidation to 1st world corporations of what remained of Haiti’s public wealth.
02.17.10 at 2:07 am