Sunday Shows To West Virginia: Drop Dead!

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Source: Huffington Post

Some 300,000 residents of West Virginia are without safe drinking water this weekend after 7,500 gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol leaked into the Elk River. It's a news story of great importance to ordinary human Americans, and so let's round up all of the coverage the Sunday shows gave to one of the most significant (and potentially scandalous) environmental disasters in America since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.


Oh, yeah, there was none. But look, it was really important that Sunday pundits cover this whole "Will Chris Christie Survive This Scandal To Run For President In 2016?" story. Time is of the essence on that one: They've only got two years left in which to have Really Deep Thoughts about it.

Plus CBS' "Face The Nation" just had to commemorate the Hudson River landing of U.S. Airways Flight 1549 -- the five-year anniversary of that is in three days! And Martha Raddatz had some important breaking news that definitely supersedes coverage of the Elk River spill:

"Take a look at the newest star at the Smithsonian National Zoo. We got a sneak peek at Bao Bao getting ready for her big public debut this week. But you might catch her during a nap. The four-and-a-half month old panda sleeps 20 hours a day."


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/12/sunday-shows-ignore-west-virginia-disaster_n_4585922.html

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This photo of David Gregory sums up everything wrong with the Sunday shows.

So, on behalf of my home state, allow me to extend a big flip of the bird to the beltway cocktail party circuit.

[Warpy]

1. Sunday gasbag shows are for preening and posturing

The usual run of conservatives shouting over the one or two tepid liberals who are ever allowed on those shows.

Corporate malfeasance resulting in massive inconvenience at best and a public health nightmare at worst is simply not worth talking about.

[jsr]

13. +1.

[Crowman1979]

2. I'm prone to breaking my TV if I come across any of these shows.

Hence why I never watch them.

[sendero]

9. You and me both..

... lies by omission, the MSM's modus operandi.

[MADem]

3. I don't think that it's that people don't care--I think the story broke too late in the news cycle.

They do everything for those shows from Monday to Thursday, if anything breaks later than that, it's like they don't have the wherewithal to turn on a dime. And as for MTP, Chuck Todd is the Political Director...so there's that.

I do think that any screaming, yelling and hollering that public figures from WV can do is helpful.

If Senator Byrd were still alive, this subject would be front-and-center.

I think it's horrible, and I agree with you that the story deserves more headlines. Hopefully the momentum will build over the next day or two.

[Journeyman]

4. Haven't watched that crap in over 1,800 weeks. . .

My life is infinitely better for it and my political acuity infinitely more refined than that of those who participate.

They who host and put on such garbage whore for the most base motives.

[McDiggy]

5. You think people care about WV?

Nobody has ever cared about WV. Its citizens are hated and ridiculed by seemingly everyone. This shouldn't really be a shock. If this happened somewhere where peoples' lives were something that people thought mattered, it would be the only thing talked about on the 24 hour news cycle. A bunch of poor hillbillies suffering? Nobody cares.

[theHandpuppet]

11. Bingo!

And some folks think we just make this stuff up. No one gives a damn about Appalachia.

[Aristus]

24. I don't think it's unfair to suggest that for centuries, Appalachia hasn't given a damn

about the rest of the country.

All I've ever heard about mountaineers is that they don't want to be bothered; they want to be left alone, with no one intruding into their insular lives. Opposition to taxes (revenuers), outsiders, or just about anything else, including environmental regulation.

It's a little late to be complaining that no one cares.

If people get told to 'go away' often enough, they will...

[DianaForRussFeingold]

6. OMG! President Obama declared a "State Of Emergency"

Thank you for posting this..needs more national media attention.
My thoughts and prayers..

[Cha]

7. What's ultimately wrong with the United States of

America.. The US corporatesleeze is there to protect viewers from REAliTY and to PITCH their Shit.

A$$hole media.. OCCUPY THE MEDIA.

[jtuck004]

8. After your outrage, go checked your water storage. Or make some.

http://www.ready.gov/water <--Per this, keep at least a three-day supply of water per person. (Might I suggest at least 3 gal per day? And PLEASE keep some for your pets, Enough for 7 days for ALL of you).

This public service message brought to you by...

%3Fw%3D480%26h%3D320%26crop%3D1

[pangaia]

15. That panda is cute but,

check out those claws. Never forget... this is a bear!

[reformist2]

10. I find myself not even thinking about those shows anymore...

Even when I agree with some of the panelists, it seems as if it is just another week of preening and posturing, as another poster wrote, and another week of not actually doing anything. And then recently, a funny thing happened - I stopped watching these stupid shows. Truly motivated people should turn Sundays into a time to voice their dissent in public, not cheering or jeering a bunch of boobs in clown makeup.

[ctsnowman]

12. The shows

are just for show. Bunch of entitled people talking about the unwashed masses, all the while pretending to be bitter enemies while on camera.

[CTyankee]

14. We need another Nader to really bring this full front in the media.

The next time you hear any repuke talk about how "government regulation" is holding back the creation of jobs, refer them to this story...

[maddiemom]

16. That scenario was the moment I stopped supressing my gag reflex.

Just imagine Walter Cronkite in that scenario (or even John Cameron Swayze, if you're as ancient as I am).

[L0oniX]

18. So why is the EPA stopping me from flushing my toilet?

I only ate some damn jalapenos! It won't hurt the environment ...only my ass.

Who's protecting the people? ...the NSA? ...the military? ...the police???

Oh silly me ...protecting ALL the people is socialism.

[MadCrow]

19. My Take

As a transplanted New Yorker living in WV since 1972, I have to say that I am dismayed by the stereotypical manner in which all West Virginians are portrayed by the so-called "liberal" media.
When our coal miners went on strike, the media came down here and interviewed some striking miners in a beer hall, playing pool and listening to Johnny Paycheck singing "Take This Job and Shove It." Not all coal miners spend their free time drinking beer and playing pool, but even if they did, they earned the right to do so. But this picture fits the image of the "dumb" hillbilly that the media wants to perpetuate.
Coal mining is a hard and dangerous job. How many of these citified, so-called "liberal", correspondents could work for 1 day crawling on their hands and knees in a coal mine? Some coal seams are so low that some miners literally can't stand upright. Yet these outside correspondents always seem to act so superior to those they interview. No wonder that every business place I enter is watching FOX news. They might pander to us, but they don't belittle us.

[Fumesucker]

20. Fox wouldn't talk about or interview strikers at all

They would interview the CEO of the firm in question and present his side of the story exclusively.

Furthermore, welcome to DU!

[MadCrow]

21. Agreed

I remember watching the coverage in New York of the Kennedy campaign in WV and the Buffalo Creek disaster. That coverage also reinforced the stereotypical WV image. It would be nice to see a positive image of the state once in a while!

[Staph]

23. I have to give the national news organizations a little, teeny, tiny bit of credit.

In the stories that first hit the national news on Friday, the ordinary West Virginians interviewed were not at all stereotypical. They were of normal weight, had all their teeth, seemed somewhat educated. Any West Virginian will tell you that when we are portrayed on the evening news, everyone of us is shown as beyond the lazy hillbilly image.

I had a chat with a newspaper reporter from New York (during the Hilary Clinton victory celebration after the 2008 West Virginia primary). He freely admitted that most of his fellow reporters (print and otherwise) defaulted to the stereotypes for most places, because that was what viewers and, more importantly, management expected to see when reporting from anywhere in flyover country. I had been interviewed by another print reporter earlier in the evening, who made all sorts of assumptions about my political opinions and knowledge, that I was uninformed and of a conservative bent, simply because I was a hick. I enjoyed playing with her tiny mind, and recounted the information to the other reporter, which is what started our conversation on stereotypes.

And I am a native West Virginian, with roots in the state that go back to the mid 1700s.

(But I don't want to get started on stereotypes -- between attitudes here on DU and the debacle that is Jamie Oliver, I end up with a very sour stomach!)

[MicaelS]

22. But they're just a bunch of poor white people who don't really matter.

So it is perfectly fine to ignore them.