MSNBC finally gets it...around 9 o'clock last night.

[ClusterFreak]

I and no doubt countless numbers of others here noticed how appallingly slow off the mark MSNBC was last night in covering the Haiti disaster. I posted a thread in fact....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7450146

And I'm glad to see others feel the same way....

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/haiti-earthquake-grim-news-who-covered-it/


If MSNBC is going to call itself a cable news network, it might want to make sure that when an epic natural disaster takes place somewhere on the globe, it actually suspends regular programming and covers the fucking news.

[stray cat]

1. I heard it on MSNBC when I came home at 7 pm

[Subdivisions]

2. The deal in propaganda, not news. n/t

[aquart]

3. A news network that takes weekends off?

[nykym]

4. I wish they

would suspend their recent programming and go back to reporting some news! Lately its promote this book or this talking head and let's dwell on the past for a while. Completely and utterly boring.

[louis-t]

5. Well, I had CNN on, they had the same 5 second video loop

and were reading the same copy over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over..............

[CC]

7. I switch from CNN because of that.

MSNBC did break in with news of the earthquake not long after it happened and said they would interrupt as they got good information. Kudos to them for that. They updated through out the regularly program with what they had but did not numb the mind with endless repetition of the same thing. When they started getting more feeds and information from Haiti they moved things and started reporting live. I prefer real info to endless loops of the same old thing or even worse misinformation.

[ClusterFreak]

11. MSNBC did fuck all until Rachel opened her show at 9pm.

Breaking in with a bulletin here and there and then going back to Keith giving it to Mark McGwire for his 11th hour steroid confessions is NOT enough when a disaster of epic proportions is taking place. MSNBC's coverage last night was - until Rachel came back on live at 11 - a complete joke.

I watched CNN's coverage and at least they were trying to treat the quake with the gravity it deserved. They repeated stuff for sure but they kept trying to get anything new they could, interviewing locals via Skype and that kind of thing.

I hope people (not accusing you necessarily) who are defending MSNBC aren't just doing so because it is the home to progressive talkers like Ed Schultz, Olbermann and Rachel.

[CC]

20. Some is what you prefer news wise as to updates.

CNN was driving me nuts with the breathless no new information so MSNBC went on in the background as I used the internet for real updates. The problem with the endless repetition of the same news is no matter how grave it is and how grave you present it can desensitize some people. Probably about the same percentage as think Fox has real news. The internet was still my best bet.
Though I am a big Olbermann and Madow fan I don't knock CNN either, when they get in gear to do coverage of real news they can do great job. Shame they forget that business model most of the time.

[LeftyMom]

18. I swore off of TV news the night Katrina hit because of that.

Not only were they repeating the same reports over and over, most of what they were telling us turned out to be bullshit. I was getting fresher and what turned out to be more accurate news online.

[MiniMe]

6. They did have Rachel on live at 11 last nite

And David Schuster was on at midnight. But they really didn't cover it much until then.

[ellenfl]

8. what was there to cover? i get so tired of seeing and hearing the

same pics and comments over and over again. come back on when you have some new news. david shuster cut a local story about the hypothermic iguanas that i wanted to see because they needed to show the same over-exposed story about a missing blonde or a shamed athlete or the gas container puncture in south carolina. enough! show the story periodically and when you have something new to report, not continuously.

ellen

[Stinky The Clown]

9. MSNBC calls itself "The Place For Politics"

CNN, Al Jazeera, The Beeb ..... they're cable news operations.

MSNBC and Fox are mirror image cartoon networks.

[gels]

10. Really!! How many times can they drop the ball

but we DID get to see the Thrilla from Wasilla's debut on Billo's show WGAF!
Sometimes we NEED THE FRICKIN' NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ClusterFreak]

12. The news...

...or as you so aptly describe it, the "frickin'" news;-) should always, ALWAYS, trump opinion journalism. What's the latest...what's the NEWS. That's what's ultimately important when there is an unfolding drama like this one. It didn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together: a 7.0 quake hits the already squalorous capital city of Haiti - a third world Caribbean country - so you drop all the chatter and get down to business. This is an epic disaster, it's happening now, so fuck Mark McGwire and the two journo-hacks who wrote that salacious, gossip tome about the 2008 campaign.

Sometimes we need the frickin' news.:hi:

[malaise]

13. You were right

Thanks for the mediaite link.

[ClusterFreak]

14. Rachel Sklar nailed it, didn't she?

:thumbsup:

[malaise]

15. Yep

Our local stations covered nothing but Haiti all night

[ddeclue]

16. Fake News was even later.. the news was still in the crawl at 11PM Eastern..

well considering their demographics I guess non-American non-white people really don't matter to Fox.

[Liberal In Texas]

17. They had it in their news breaks at the top and bottom of the hour.

If it was wall-to-wall coverage you were looking for, no they didn't do that, you could have probably dialed over to CNN if that's what you wanted.

Frankly, I don't see why everybody should be expected to program the same way.

[glarius]

19. The point is...the earthquake hit at 5PM and nobody at MSNBC talked

about it until Rache Madow at 9PM. Seeing as MSNBC is a news channel, that is really ridiculous!

[Bluebear]

21. 'Frankly, I don't see why everybody should be expected to program the same way.'

because it is a monumental disaster?

[Berry Cool]

22. I don't entirely blame MSNBC for handling it how they did.

Maybe they should've switched Keith or Rachel to it sooner, but that's about it. I think when something like this first happens it's hard to ascertain the extent of what's happened or whether, if you go to live coverage of it, you will have much to do other than repeat the same small fragments of information over and over again. I also think, frankly, that MSNBC was reluctant to convert its normal lineup of ratings-winning primetime shows into essentially three or four hours of nothing but earthquake coverage with rotating anchors unless it had a really good reason to think that the circumstances warranted it and that (sad but true) it would behoove them to do so ratingswise.

In other words, they went on constant Michael Jackson death coverage faster than they did earthquake coverage not because MJ was more important but because of ratings and competition. But then again, when John Paul II was dying, they were on that quite early as well.

MSNBC has always tended to be a little more loyal to ratings than to news coverage, which is unfortunate but I think it's the reason they didn't really start serious earthquake coverage until 11 last night. They wanted to get their highest-rated shows, with whatever variety of news they planned on showing, done first, and then do it. It's the same reason they (annoyingly) fill many other hours with pretaped specials, including holidays. If big news breaks on a holiday, it takes them time to get their regular news people in to cover it, but if it's big enough, they do. They're just slower at it than just about anyone else.

Edited to point out they didn't really do it until 11, and that if I were them, I would've skipped the Olbermann rerun. But this is what I'm saying; they probably ran it because they thought it would get them higher ratings that hour. Which I personally would say is a dumb reason.