Why didn't MSNBC cover the last miner out?

[searadiofreak]

Being the media junkie that I am, I was switching back and forth between the big three cable news channels, and inexplicably, MSNBC did not cover the 33rd and last miner out. Instead, it was Olbermann doing a report on Carl Paladino. I can only speculate, but perhaps Olbermann taped early knowing that the show probably would not air. Does anyone have any insight? MSNBC has been covering this story (last night and today), but when it came to the climax they were nowhere to be found!

 

[Jul]

unreal. so stupid.

 

[sandiegoinexile]

OH MY GOODNESS. How horrible. How tragic for the American Viewing Public. To think that dozens of viewers missed out on the tearful reunion of a thirty-third person in a country that 95% of Americans could not even find on a map 24 hours after the Great Rescue began. And frankly, #33 wouldn't be the last one out anyway since there are/were at least two "rescue workers" who had gone into the mine to assist with the loading.

Yea, I cried a tear here and there as various networks showed clips. Actually I thought the BBC America coverage was best of all. They didn't focus on America The Savior Of These Poor Foreigners. The few random times I tuned to Fox, they were drooling all over the hired gun American contractor who had "been at the wheel when they broke through".

How about covering the 33 people who were killed in drunk driving murders today? Or the 33 unemployed workers who found a job? Or the 33 volunteers making a difference?

I'm usually not this cranky. It just seemed to me that the coverage was way crazy overblown.

 

[DToTheJ]

MSNBC has been covering this story (last night and today), but when it came to the climax they were nowhere to be found!

Maybe they didn't want to risk their strong ratings lead over CNN and kept with Keith Olbermann during the hour.

Or - assuming (hoping) that CNN cut "Parker/Spitzer" to cover the rescue's crescendo - MSNBC realized that it would be somewhat of a losing battle to go up against CNN in the one area that CNN still excels - breaking news - and still decided to keep after it with Keith Olbermann.

 

[Sammi Brie]

MSNBC has been covering this story (last night and today), but when it came to the climax they were nowhere to be found!

Maybe they didn't want to risk their strong ratings lead over CNN and kept with Keith Olbermann during the hour.

Or - assuming (hoping) that CNN cut "Parker/Spitzer" to cover the rescue's crescendo - MSNBC realized that it would be somewhat of a losing battle to go up against CNN in the one area that CNN still excels - breaking news - and still decided to keep after it with Keith Olbermann.

CNN ran its debate until 5:20PT, when they cut away for Parker/Spitzer-helmed special coverage.

 

[MarcB]

Does it really matter? It's not like anyone watches this channel to begin with. And this is the channel that reruns To Catch A Predator, To Catch An Identity Thief, Inside This Prison, Inside that Prison, etc, etc, etc every weekend all weekend long.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

OH MY GOODNESS. How horrible. How tragic for the American Viewing Public. To think that dozens of viewers missed out on the tearful reunion of a thirty-third person in a country that 95% of Americans could not even find on a map 24 hours after the Great Rescue began. And frankly, #33 wouldn't be the last one out anyway since there are/were at least two "rescue workers" who had gone into the mine to assist with the loading.

Yea, I cried a tear here and there as various networks showed clips. Actually I thought the BBC America coverage was best of all. They didn't focus on America The Savior Of These Poor Foreigners. The few random times I tuned to Fox, they were drooling all over the hired gun American contractor who had "been at the wheel when they broke through".

How about covering the 33 people who were killed in drunk driving murders today? Or the 33 unemployed workers who found a job? Or the 33 volunteers making a difference?

I'm usually not this cranky. It just seemed to me that the coverage was way crazy overblown.

I was forced to watch the last miner being pulled out, followed by the joyous celebration, on Telemundo and Univision (and I understand very little Spanish). I kept flipping to see if the Big Four would break into programming to cover this historic and miraculous event, but instead...

ABC: Better with You
CBS: Survivor (they can't let half the country miss that all-important Tribal Council!)
Fox: Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsay flipping off another wanna-be chef is must-see TV!)
NBC: Undercovers

Right now I don't have full-fledged cable so I only have broadcast channels, public-access and a few networks -- none of which are news channels.

Someone posted that ABC did a special on the miners at 10:00 PM Eastern, a time when there are fewer viewers watching. No pun intended, but the those interested in the story got the shaft.

 

[BRNout]

OH MY GOODNESS. How horrible. How tragic for the American Viewing Public. To think that dozens of viewers missed out on the tearful reunion of a thirty-third person in a country that 95% of Americans could not even find on a map 24 hours after the Great Rescue began.

There's some truth to that comment and it's sad. I wouldn't brag about how uneducated most Americans are, particularly when I've met very poor people in Nicaragua and Honduras that know more about the geography of the Western Hemisphere than the rich American girls who drive mom's SUV and text on $500 cellphones at the upscale mall. And their video game playing male counterparts.

Then again, since when is a little education about the outside world a bad thing?

How about covering the 33 people who were killed in drunk driving murders today? Or the 33 unemployed workers who found a job? Or the 33 volunteers making a difference?

There were more probably more people killed by drunks than that today and most DO get some coverage in their respective local areas. Just not nationally. As for the 33 who found a job, they are in the same mirage that our president looks at when he tells us how we're in a recovery right now. It's better when news doesn't mix with fiction.

Most volunteers do so in anonymity - but when there's a group of 33 of them, they DO get local press quite often.

Lastly, Univision and Telemundo probably did go overboard with wall-to-wall coverage of the event for a number of days. Not that it wasn't an inspiring story, but I don't know that pre-empting their popular evening programs for the coverage was necessarily smart. They could have, instead, offered periodic cut-ins to update the story (featuring that sexy Edna Schmidt...) while allowing viewers to watch their telenovelas.

Very, very, very few of the Spanish speakers in this country are from Chile (something like 0.05% of Latinos in the US); the vast majority are Mexican, Puerto Rican and Central American. Those folks have had an interest in this story, but not to that much more of an extent than English-speaking Americans have had. Personally, I think UNI and TEL overdid it a bit.

All that said, the last miner coming out is probably an event that would deserve live coverage on an alleged cable news network like MSNBC. That, and the first miner out, are chapters in the story that are worthy of more attention. Or as some would say: a big deal.

 

[Nate Wesley]

Does it really matter? It's not like anyone watches this channel to begin with. And this is the channel that reruns To Catch A Predator, To Catch An Identity Thief, Inside This Prison, Inside that Prison, etc, etc, etc every weekend all weekend long.

I love how MSNBC has consistently been competitive versus both CNN and HLN, often being the number two newschannel behind FNC--but yet 'nobody watches'.

 

[Mainedude2007]

Does it really matter? It's not like anyone watches this channel to begin with. And this is the channel that reruns To Catch A Predator, To Catch An Identity Thief, Inside This Prison, Inside that Prison, etc, etc, etc every weekend all weekend long.

I love how MSNBC has consistently been competitive versus both CNN and HLN, often being the number two newschannel behind FNC--but yet 'nobody watches'.

If you look at the numbers overall I believe it is the #2 network...but there's always going to be that group of "nobody watches" people because nobody used to...just like there's still a small group out there that views Fox as the "4th network" and not one of the "Big 3" even though it has top rated shows like American Idol.

 

[DToTheJ]

Looks like Fox News won the 8 PM hour, with MSNBC a distant third:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar...inates_Competition_for_Final_Miner_Rescue.php