Our eagle-eyed archivists at MRC who record live network coverage
thought it was curious that ABC and CBS weren't joining in as NBC
offered live coverage of today's memorial service for the dead and
wounded at Fort Hood. As The Wall Street Journal reported:
Camouflage-clad soldiers snapped to a salute as the national anthem played, and many murmured along when Gen. George Casey uttered the words of the warrior ethos: "I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat."
A chaplain also spoke. But ABC and CBS were still running their
soaps. When did they start live coverage? Just before President Obama
spoke. When did they end? CBS jumped back out shortly after Obama
finished. ABC held on for a few bars of "Amazing Grace."
These networks apparently had no concept of how this might look to
the people who truly mourned the lost at Fort Hood. No prayers, no
hymns, no national anthem, no chaplains, no generals. It's Obama and
out.
This is hardly the way ABC and CBS covered the gaudy and
overextended Michael Jackson memorial service in July. As the
Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
Tuesday's live coverage of Michael Jackson's memorial service was watched by an average audience of more than 30.9 million people over the course of about three hours, reports Nielsen, which counted viewing on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Telefutura, Telemundo, Univision, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Headline News, BET, E!, MTV, VH1, VH1 Classic, TV Guide Network, TV One and MUN2.
The pattern - that dead and freakish celebrities are much more
newsworthy than American soldiers - continues. As Brent Bozell noted
this summer: "On the night of July 6, ABC, CBS, and NBC, paid twenty
times more attention to Jackson (more than a week after his death) than
to the deaths of seven brave soldiers in Afghanistan." July 7 BiasAlert: "Seven Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan Get 1/20th Time Given to Jackson [1]."
- Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.