TV News Review

Last week was both the 2nd anniversary of hurricane Katrina hitting the US Gulf Coast and the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. Watching the coverage of these two anniversaries on CNN and Fox News has been interesting.

Fox News sent anchor Martha McCallum to London to do her show “The Live Desk” live on both Thursday and Friday, plus reporting live for other shows throughout the day. This on top of earlier this summer an entire week of shows of “Live Desk” being dedicated to covering the life and death of Princess Diana. Fox News also sent Catherine Herridge over to London. Herridge is a D.C. based anchor and national security correspondent. Herridge was a London based correspondent 10 years ago and covered the death of Diana live from Paris within hours of the deadly car wreck.

Friday morning, ‘Fox & friends’ started an hour early at 5am ET to have extra coverage of the anniversary of Diana’s memorial service in London. Friday night saw the third and final special report by Greta Van Sustren on Princess Diana’s death. This was preceded by a rerun of the special coverage of the memorial service in London that was on Fox & friends earlier Friday morning. Then over the weekend there were numerous hours of Fox News airtime given to more coverage of Princess Diana’s life and death.

In contrast CNN sent one reporter to cover the British memorial service for Princess Diana, treating it as a regular news story.

Meanwhile to cover the second anniversary of hurricane Katrina CNN had both Solidad O’Brien and Anderson Cooper, along with several reporters in New Orleans. Many hours of prime time and reports throughout the day covered the recovery and problems that have been faced in two years since Katrina.

Fox News sent four reporters, but not a single anchor, to the area effected by Katrina. Not a single hour of prime time, or weekend airtime, was dedicated to the Katrina anniversary.

This blogger is disappointed that Fox News would spend so much of their resources and airtime covering the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana’s death, yet give little notice to the continuing struggle and recovery of the gulf coast. It is particularly surprising that Sheppard Smith, a Mississippi native, who did such impressive reporting from New Orleans immediately after Katrina hit, did not travel to the gulf coast for the anniversary.

Could it be that Fox News considers the death of a British Princess, ten years ago, to be more important than the death of over 1800 American citizens in 5 different states, the near loss of a major American city, and the spending of billions of dollars of private and government aid? Does Fox News make their decisions based upon the idea that the death of one person is a tragedy; the death of 1800 people is a statistic?

CNN deserves credit for being able to see that the Katrina anniversary was the story deserving of extra airtime and sending their anchors to broadcast live on the story.
Fox News needs to reexamine how they make their decisions on what stories are a true priority. 1800+ American deaths and the continuing struggles of the survivors deserve at least the same time and resources as those given to the death of one member of the British royal family.

One Eyed Man