October 5, 2024

How political is hurricane coverage?

95 comments:

wild chicken said...

This kind of bias tries my new commitment to Cruel Neutrality.

Those bastards ..

Maynard said...

Is anyone surprised?

Political Junkie said...

D control over MSM, Hollywood, academia is worth 10 net points at the ballot box.

Yancey Ward said...

Was there a hurricane?

Yancey Ward said...

What was particularly interesting yesterday was the contrast between Mayorkas claiming there was no money to found for Helene victims and Blinken bragging about $150 million allotted for Gaza at practically the same moment in time. Trump should make an add out of that contrast along with Mayorkas and Biden announcing aid for illegal immigrants in the country.

Original Mike said...

They need to hide the active hinderance of private parties to help out their fellow Americans.


- FEMA's involvement has seriously complicated the rescue efforts.
- Local Sheriffs have threatened to arrest FEMA workers if they hinder rescue and aid work.

Peachy said...

Jan 6th should be a national Holy-day for leftist-Democrats.
Jan 6th was worse than 9/11, the holocaust, WWI & II combined.

DINKY DAU 45 said...

Right wing prelude to squashing NOAA and privatizing reporting .Project 2025 read it..

mccullough said...

The NYT caters to its readership.

narciso said...

From skydragon to delta house and back again

Peachy said...

Dinky - I have read it. Most of it is a great idea - for the American people.
No wonder you leftists are melting down in fear and loathing over it. Plus lies++

Ambrose said...

I mentioned Katrina in a comment to an NYT article - LOL, did that touch a nerve with my fellow commenters

Kakistocracy said...

Trump rejects California request for major wildfire assistance
https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/10/16/trump-rejects-california-request-for-wildfire-assistance-1325891

There was a story on Thursday. Two former Trump White House officials told a Politico reporter that they had to show Trump voter data to get him to help California wildfire victims, which he ultimately only did because they showed him that in Orange County, there were actually a lot of Republicans, Republican voters. And when he found out that there's actually a lot of Republicans in Orange County, he said, okay, you can release the funds to help people who are victims of wildfires.

Trump is someone who is going to help the people who can help him and punish the people who do not support him. That is his view of power. That is his only ideology. It is not conservative, it is not populist, it is only if you can help me, I'll help you and if you don't support me, you're screwed. That's it.

It's vengeful narcissism.

Achilles said...

This is how stupid you have to be to support Kamala Harris.

Achilles said...

The fun part will come when Democrats pretend that Kamala got 95 million votes.

Amadeus 48 said...

NYT: No going back? Hell, no. We’re going back to Jan 6, 2021, the worst day in world history!

John henry said...

Have you actually read the project 2025 section on NOAA, dinky? My guess is no or you would not post such disinformation.

John Henry

narciso said...

Circling back

Aggie said...

I haven't read it, and am pretty sure I wouldn't agree with all of it, but just to be helpful

Peachy said...

with illegals voting - she might.

Saint Croix said...

Make America Riot Again

MadTownGuy said...

"What storm?"

Kakistocracy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MadTownGuy said...

I can see the local law enforcement's actions being used to make the case for federalizing all local and state policing. I see it as being of a piece with the 'Defund the police' push.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

In the new Twister movie, without Helen Hunt, there is a scene describing how land speculators descend into storm devastated areas to pray on vulnerable people who just lost almost everything but the piece of land where their home used to stand. Maybe that's the reason why people are not being allowed in this time? I don't know, I'm just trying to figure it out. Not letting people in to help has to make sense.

Michael K said...

The NY Times uses the famous pillow to cover the hurricane story and the FEMA fuckup. But they won't stop moving.

Saint Croix said...

Politico suggests the flood will help Harris in Georgia and North Carolina if the government does nothing.

Iman said...

Fuck the NYT in their pieholes!

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

If the media covers it, like they did Katrina, then more people will be moved to want to go and help? Which is good, but then among them, more chances for predators to go in. Again, I'm just speculating...

The Middle Coast said...

A few hours ago I talked to one of my tenants in east-central Georgia. No power, no water from the well, limited cell service. Four young children. No power for 2-3 more weeks. Same situation with another tenant family about 600 feet away, with three small kids.. I called the local sheriff’s office, and they can wellness checks, drop off water, do what they can to provide food, etc. and North Carolina is a couple of orders of magnitude worse.

JK Brown said...

To be fair, the MSM coverage of Katrina was almost exclusively on New Orleans and not the area actually destroyed by the storm across the coast of Mississippi to Dauphin Is, AL. The city flooded when the century of government contract corruption caused the levees to breach before the water pushed into the Delta Marsh could drain. Hours after Katrina herself left New Orleans mostly unscathed. But neighborhoods with nothing but concrete pads didn't make the good visuals compared to flooded streets.

Appalachia is hard to get to, and it's mostly washed out roads and bridges as the water is well on its way to the Atlantic or Mississippi now

Here's a good video from Western NC of during and after the storm.
https://youtu.be/-R-SWvYsrhk

Saint Croix said...

Professionals can be dismissive of amateurs, I guess.

But what's weird is when they are dismissive of professionals, too.

This is the #1 article at The Hill right now:

Pilot flying Helene rescue missions in NC threatened with arrest

Amadeus 48 said...

Yada, yada, yada. Have you checked out the news recently? Something about floods in NC and FEMA? Absent FEMA? Unhelpful FEMA? David Axelrod saying the quiet part our loud?

Big Mike said...

It would be, if Hollywood still made entertainment that people want to watch.

Peachy said...

time tunneling for relevance. Seems desperate.

Dixcus said...

They'll cancel their subscriptions otherwise. These people are mentally insane and the NY Times makes a LOT of money off their sickness.

Peachy said...

Yeah - but they might not vote for Kamala - so screw em' - says Axelrod.

Dixcus said...

One wonders if they'll be allowed to board up the windows to the counting room without getting the sh|t beat out of them on national television ... like they did last time.

Dixcus said...

It's not going to be a riot. It's going to be a guerilla war. A riot can be put down fairly easily.

Not George Floyd.

It will be Red Dawn Wolverines.

Peachy said...

Got any cares or fucks to give about the people of NC, TN and GA who are suffering? We are guessing - no.

Mason G said...

"This is the #1 article at The Hill right now:"

If people get it into their heads that they can help themselves, they'll realize they don't need the government as much as they think they might otherwise.

This is probably an idea the government would like to discourage.

JK Brown said...

I realized we train disaster response wrong. It's not that we don't need highly skilled operatives, but what they skip is we need people trained to go in an organize the "indigenous" people like the Green Berets. The big skill with the Green Berets is in going in and organizing local forces. We need a level of disaster response "pro" who is more about organizing the civilian response instead of "being large and in charge". People with the training to integrate their groups into the larger response force.

And they would be nice people who coordinated rather than tried to commandeer.

Michael K said...

But Kamala doing the same in North Carolina is OK. Trump tried to teach Governor Hair gGel how to avoid those destructive fires. Names reduce the fuel in neglected (on purpose) forests. My son has been with CalFire for years. He sees it all the time. They won't even let people cut down dead trees.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Yes. I very much believe that, Mason G

Big Mike said...

How do I know that FEMA under Donald Trump did an outstanding job when not one but three major hurricanes during the one month period from August 23 to September 22, 2017?

There was virtually no coverage of cleanups and relief efforts at the time. Well, that’s not completely true. There were problems in Puerto Rico that the newsmedia tried to pin on Trump, but when itt t turned out that the problems were due to graft and corruption by top people in the island’s Democrat-controlled government the story was quickly dropped. (John Henry might want to weigh in here, and I have no problem if he’d like to correct any misstatements I’ve made l.)

And how do I know that seven years later FEMA is doing a terrible job on Helene? Because the same newsmedia are trying to bury the story

NKP said...

Bias is too bland. The media is at war with the America I grew up in, understood and loved.

I find it ironic that the media demonizes colonization of America by white, European, Christians and now welcomes re-colonization by people of color and myriad unfamiliar cultures. Obama promised to fundamentally change our country. Will his legacy be "Father of New America"? The tipping point is staring us in the face.

Not to ignore hurricane coverage. Katrina's victims, like those at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, were
left in harm's way by politicians who refused help offered by the Feds. Helene's victims were ignored by the media once the requisite "climate change" messages were filed. After all, Helene's victims are not oppressed people of color; for the most part, they're disgusting rednecks and assorted "white trash". Fed handling of Helene relief should front page and leading every network's nightly news, until all is sorted out.

Aught Severn said...

From your link:

Trump over the years has repeatedly threatened to withhold aid from California over what he views as its poor forest management.

Which certainly seems reasonable. You did not provide a link to what I assume are anonymous sources providing your voter data allegation. I believe this place your aspersions in the 'without evidence' category.

Dixcus said...

Notice that there are ZERO FEMA vehicles in that video.

Dixcus said...

The media is pissed off at the American people and determined to get back at them. For cancelling their subscriptions. And leaving the only remaining readers of their newspapers as shut-ins and other low-IQ mental midgets.

Aught Severn said...

It was like 9/11 times 100.

mikee said...

I for one look forward to the NY Times discovering, or remembering, that this is the time of year the Fall leaves in Appalachia peak in color. Surely a few intrepid reporters will want to head to the mountains of NC & TN if only to see the pretty hillsides over the next few weeks. Maybe they can do a human interest story about lack of tourism this year in Asheville, to satisfy the bean counters about their expense reports.

Kate said...

Jan 6 again?? My God, people. Read another book.

mindnumbrobot said...

I hope this is just an observation by the professor rather than being surprised at such predictable bias.

rhhardin said...

It's also highly scripted from the first reporter standing in the rain to the last hunt for victim feelings, if nothing better comes up in the meantime. If there's a hurricane and a school shooting in the same news period then there's editorial chaos.

chuck said...

Hurricane coverage is completely political. I read blogs for information about Karina and donated to several non-government relief efforts, the media news was mostly worthless. I have mostly relied on X for Helene coverage. The downside is that those are all small, local views, the big picture is hard to discern, and I haven't the time or resources to cover that. That is what the news should do, but it doesn't.

Earnest Prole said...

Wait, you mean to tell me the New York Times is a shill for Democrats? Well slap my ass and call me Sally.

narciso said...

hello Sally

I Use Computers to Write Words said...

I enjoy the juxtaposition of "Trump Retains Secretive Grip on Health Files" with the photo of people holding hands. My first thought was, is one of them Trump? And he has a secret handshake?

Just an old country lawyer said...

When through the deep waters I cause thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow,
For I shall be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

chuck said...

After hiding Biden's dementia for four years, suddenly they care.

chuck said...

I'd like to know more about the rumor of an FEMA guy getting beaten.

Big Mike said...

Mark a spot, Ernie, because you’re 100% ass.

Big Mike said...

@JK Brown, it would be nice, but that’s not how the minds of bureaucrats work.

Former Illinois resident said...

What little coverage there has been on Hurricane Helene damage is focused upon Asheville NC, which oddly was also coincidently known as the most LGBTQX-friendly tourist destination in US. Asheville is also notorious as both bastion of liberal progressive woke folks and as prime destination for homeless folks seeking pleasant homeless environs.

Callous East Coast and West Coast progressives have zero regard for disaster in what is perceived as "white Appalachia", so disaster is perhaps perceived as advantageous for rabid Kamala supporters. But Western North Carolina is of course far more nuanced, with many progressive millionaire Democrats owning multi million-dollar houses in Asheville, in nearby upscale small resort towns, and the Blue Ridge mountain ridges. Go spend some time on realtor.com; there's a lot of destroyed expensive residential real estate, in addition to modest homes of mill towns and farming villages.

Magnitude of destruction remains unreported, neither Biden nor Harris give a hoot.

narciso said...

that was maggie haberman's byline, oh noes, anyways,

Goldenpause said...

This is what you get when media become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party.

Jim at said...

Right wing prelude to squashing NOAA and privatizing reporting .Project 2025 read it..

You do realize the Republican Party has a platform, right? You do realize it was drafted, voted on and adopted, right?

You do know Project 2025 isn't that platform, right? You do know no Republican candidate has attached him or herself to Project 2025, right? You do know it's just a gathering of ideas some of which may or may not find their way onto an actual piece of legislation, right?

You do know you're full of shit when you push Project 2025 as some sort of policy statement, right?

Jim at said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

More of this, please.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

It's too bad no one does anything like that. There's a very apt meme that's been floating around lately that says; "In a natural disaster one Redneck neighbor is worth 1,000 PhD's".

hombre said...

Katrina gave them an opportunity to dump on Bush. Helene compels criticism of Biden-Harris screwups. We can't have that. Social media even has accounts of local law enforcement threatening to arrest FEMA personnel for obstructing the relief effort. The incompetence, bias, unreliability, whatever, of the MSM is particularly unsettling when trying to assess the ability of our government to deal with a natural disaster. Think of a war.

charis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mason G said...

"We can't have that. Social media even has accounts of local law enforcement threatening to arrest FEMA personnel for obstructing the relief effort."

Anymore, most normal people are pretty much on board with Reagan's "The nine most terrifying words in the English language".

It's actually worse than that, though. Just being ineffectual is one thing, actively subverting or supporting subversion of recovery efforts is another thing entirely. And what that thing is is "lower than whale shit".

It's a good lesson for anyone who's paying attention, though. Go ahead- depend on the government and see where that gets you.

narciso said...

That is malice of forethought

Kakistocracy said...

It’s pretty sad that at this point the only way Republicans think they can get their old demented senile candidate over the finish line is to lie repeatedly about disaster relief to people who are suffering so much already.

Kakistocracy said...

Twitter has turned into such a big conspiracy machine filled with grievances and right-wing disinformation that it’s hindering the federal disaster response to a major hurricane with stupidity alone.

Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response

wildswan said...

Great video - and at the same site there are several other videos so you get a real idea of the storm and the aftermath. Miles of wreckage. Crews everywhere opening roads.

Big Mike said...

@NorthOfTheOneOhOne, true that. But you don’t get it. I lived in and near Washington, DC, from 1969 until I retired ten years ago. I assure you that government bureaucrats, nearly all of them, may call themselves public servants, however deep down inside they think of the public as their servants. They seldom accomplish much in the course of a day, but they are unshakably convinced that they are seriously underpaid and could earn vastly more out on the real world — the notion that they might be called upon to produce measurable results does not compute. Why are they as arrogant as they are? Well, they have doctorates, they have degrees from Ivy League or other highly selective universities (e.g., Stanford, Berkeley), consequently they know everything it is possible to know. They don’t need to have hands-on experience concerning forest management, for instance, because they have read up on all the latest theories from academia. What more do they need to know?

Big Mike said...

Should I believe your assertion without any evidence to back it up? Or should I trust the people who are there on the ground in North Carolina? Decisions, decisions.

Achilles said...

I am glad X is free from the Regime Censorship. Now we can see just how evil and disgusting you people are in real time.

Big Mike said...

FEMA investigated itself and discovered that it is utterly blameless and its performance has been exemplary. I did not see that coming.
./sarc

Robin Goodfellow said...

That’s (D)ifferent.

stlcdr said...

Twitter (sic) can do nothing, absolutely nothing, to hinder FEMAs response. In reality, if people’s behavior changes because of something they read - specifically FEMAs inability to help or provide assistance - people will actually help people.

Government has demonstrated time and time again its disdain for the American people. But the Ingas of the world get upset when people criticize their God, all holy g(G)overnment.

Mikey NTH said...

January 6 is already factored, it won't move the needle any further. That they keep harping on it tells me they don't have anything else.

Hassayamper said...

Imagine the condition the faltering Democrats would be in today if the people of 70 years ago had paid attention to the warnings of Senator McCarthy, and taken decisive steps to run the Gramscian termites out of all the major institutions they have captured.

They are barely clinging to power despite owning the media, education from kindergarten to grad school, the civil service, Hollywood, Big Labor, Silicon Valley, the spy agencies, Federal law enforcement, the mainstream religious hierarchy, organized law and medicine, the top brass in the Pentagon, and a sizable chunk of Wall Street.

What weak, unpopular, incompetent, worthless people they are, for all their fancy titles and untrammeled prosecutors powers and enormous budgets. Take away the massively tilted playing field they enjoy due to news media bias and the rest of their institutional capture, get rid of the obvious large scale ballot fraud they have been engaging in since at least Kennedy-Nixon in 1960, and they wouldn’t garner the support of 25% of the country.

When Trump topples them with the irresistible power of America First populism, he should make the theme of his second term total war on the Left’s infestation of our institutions. Backed up by the threat of summoning the unorganized militia of 10 U.S.C. §311 to deal with the seditious, insurrectionist, treasonous government workers who thwarted his executive authority last time. Those scum have forgotten they are our hired help and I hope Trump delivers some spectacularly exemplary punishment to thousands of them on his first days in office..

There is no return to normalcy until the Left is crushed by any means necessary. Let’s get working!

Hassayamper said...

Good. The left has been doing much worse since the days of FDR. I say it is time to repay them fifty fold and kick the Democrat enemies of humanity in the teeth just as hard as we can at every opportunity.

Anyone who would vote for Commiela is an enemy traitor, not a fellow American, and the entire power of government should be used to make life so miserable for them that they flee to Canada.

Rusty said...

The fact that FEMA is actively hindering efforts has created a lot more Trump voters.

Rusty said...

The incompetence is incomprehensible.

Lazarus said...

This is not a normal American government, and Harris won't bring normality back either.

Joe Bar said...

The second picture in that tweet was cropped. The Helene story is right below the Israel story. Not that I'm A supporter of the Times or the current administration, but it's A bit deceptive.

Robert Cook said...

It's on X, so it can be discounted as fictional propaganda.

Robert Cook said...

"But Kamala doing the same in North Carolina is OK. Trump tried to teach Governor Hair gGel how to avoid those destructive fires. Names reduce the fuel in neglected (on purpose) forests. My son has been with CalFire for years. He sees it all the time. They won't even let people cut down dead trees."

She is the VP. She has ZERO functional authority or connection to the rescue efforts following the hurricane. Right now, it is the refusal of the Republicans to convene Congress to authorize additional funding for all needed services and efforts to attend to the post-storm destruction, injuries, deaths, and devastation. The Republicans are refusing to authorizing help.

Robert Cook said...

"The fact that FEMA is actively hindering efforts has created a lot more Trump voters."

Is it? How? What verification is there to support this allegation? Several governors have praised FEMA's response.

Robert Cook said...

What is "normal American government?"

One Fine Day said...

"Several governors have praised FEMA's response" This is the current journolist-approved Dem talking point. The several governors are beholden to the Feds to get funds and manpower so of course they're not telling the truth. There is a governor who is not currently beholden to the Feds or is not afraid of them and is saying something completely different. But that's not being reported by our brainless Dem loyalists.

One Fine Day said...

The only thing hindering Federal response is Federal incompetence. But State Fellaters such as Bich the Dick can't admit that government is incompetent.