Shameful Context

12 comments

1. i totally agree… thankfully i have BBC america on my cable and was able to watch their coverage yesterday morning. i couldn’t stomach how self-centered the CNN coverage was. everything was about “how many americans were killed” or else it was all about 9-11 and “how are americans feeling today…” disgusting.

   Comment by tomN! — July 8, 2005 @ 12:21 pm

2. couldn’t agree more – these kinds of statements are arrogant Nationalism at its best.

   Comment by chaelman — July 8, 2005 @ 12:42 pm

3. I definitely agree. It makes me twich every time I hear or see it. We should be able to cover something without going “America feels this way” or yadda yadda yadda. I think it makes us look very self-centered as a nation.

   Comment by Sarah — July 8, 2005 @ 12:53 pm

4. *twitch.

   sorry for wasting a comment, heh.

   Comment by Sarah — July 8, 2005 @ 12:54 pm

5. The “ugly American” mindset has been going full tilt over at Fox.

   Hume thinks the bombings are good for “buying low”. The morning crew haggles about the randomness of Al Qaida killing Arabs and “real Londoners” as well.

   I hate the idea that other countries pigeonhole me with these assholes.

   Comment by carla — July 8, 2005 @ 1:34 pm

6. I thought the same thing when I saw that headline today. And it won’t be long before the local news teams hop on the fact that John Q Public went to high school near here, 20 years ago, and do a sad little retrospective of his life.

   The idea of “it ain’t news unless there’s murkins involved” reminds me of a Murphy Brown line that’s stuck with me: “You people don’t understand — it’s only important if it happened to ME.”

   Comment by Bella — July 8, 2005 @ 2:16 pm

7. While I do agree with you, and yes Americans are by and large very self-centered, isn’t it human nature to see things from our own personal point of view?

   Comment by Smoke — July 9, 2005 @ 4:08 am

8. Two days later and Canadian news still starts by interviewing some guy arriving in an Alberta airport after his London holiday and pointing out that so far no Canadians are known to have been directly affected by the incident. There is almost an air of disappointment that the tragedy failed to include Canadian content.

   Not to worry. If you like, you can obsess about how Americans are so self-obsessed they somehow imagine they are the only people who react this way.

   Comment by Flea — July 9, 2005 @ 4:51 am

9. Sure, I’m with you. But it is a common news tactic used all over the world to bring tragedy as close to home as possible. Since American media dominate the globe, it will be much more apparent, but everyone’s doing it. It’s human nature to be more concerned about your neighbor than foreigners across the ocean.

   Comment by BlondebutBright — July 9, 2005 @ 7:06 am

10. During the WTC attacks, the Oklahoma newscasts were filled with “local interest” stories of Oklahomans whose family members had become victims of the attacks. Maybe on KTUL, there will be a story of a Tulsan who was vacationing in London last week.

    Comment by E-Rock — July 9, 2005 @ 1:50 pm

11. From The Talent Show: Shameful Context

    Shameful Context: I dunno about you guys, but I find it embarrasing to think that we live in a country that’s so self-obsessed that every mass tragedy is followed up with a story about how many Americans were affected.

    Trackback by The Betamax Guillotine — July 10, 2005 @ 9:48 pm

12. This is the same thing that happened with coverage of the tsunami…only the AMERICANS who were affected mattered. Well, Americans and bosomy swimsuit models.

    We seem to want to have a patent on tragedy; it’s a game of “mine’s bigger” that we’re playing with the rest of the world, and it’s pretty sick.

    Of course the wingnuts are saying that because the body count was less than that of 9/11, this was insignificant.

    Comment by Jill — July 11, 2005 @ 6:23 am

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