Looking for any excuse not to cover the Republicans, TV news anchors left St. Paul to cover Gustav. It’s expected and it’s appalling. Here’s what the LA Times is reporting:

The television networks and national cable news outlets Sunday shifted their top talent and reporters from the Republican National Convention here to the Gulf Coast to prepare for Hurricane Gustav’s landfall. That means John McCain and his campaign will not receive the uninterrupted attention that Barack Obama did during last week’s Democratic National Convention.

But news executives, much like the presumed Republican presidential nominee himself, said they had no choice but to follow the potentially damaging events in the South, three years after Hurricane Katrina caught some news organizations flat-footed. “I don’t even look at it as a matter of fairness,” said Jay Wallace, vice president of news at Fox News. “The prevailing story right now is this storm.”

This is a bunch of crap. The storm shouldn’t be “the prevailing story right now.” It was a Cat-2 when it made landfall, which isn’t a devastating storm. Katrina, by comparison, was a Cat-5 that left a massive trail of destruction.

This is a story that can be covered with a team of correspondents. Sending the anchors is overkill, especially after waiting a day after it made landfall. If this was such a pressing story, why haven’t we seen wall-to-wall coverage of Gustav thus far? It seems that coverage hasn’t been that big a focus.

You’ll remember that coverage of Katrina was practically nonstop, with the networks suspending their regular schedules to provide coverage. Gustav coverage? Not so much, which says that this isn’t the big deal that the networks and cable are making it out to be.

The good news is that we won’t be subjected to hearing the anchors’ biased opinions during Convention coverage. The bad news is that we’ll be subjected to lesser known people spouting essentially the same nonsense. The better news is that Sen. McCain’s picking Gov. Palin ensures that millions of people will be tuning in Wednesday night to hear her speech. The American people will be able to size her up for themselves. (BTW, expect Wednesday night’s audience to be large.)

The best news is that I suspect that they’ll be greatly impressed, which should get Democrats everywhere depressed.

Happy days are here again.

Technorati Tags: Media, Republican Convention, Gustav, Media Bias, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

1. Indeed. How dare the lives of Americans and those uprooted from their homes, fleeing Florida by the tens of thousands dare take center stage over the exhaustively over-covered political process. This storm, nay, this storm and its victims are unpatriotic. At least the Katrina victims had the good patriotic sense to stay home and quietly die until given permission by our President.

   Comment by grouchypete — September 2, 2008 @ 6:18 am

2. And besides, why do we need the press when koz and all the other nut roots and anarchists are perfectly able to step in and rachet up the Borking of Sara Palen.

   Comment by T A Gray — September 2, 2008 @ 7:07 am

3. Seriously, why so much focus on natural disasters and how it affects tens of thousands of lives as the country prepares for the next potential Katrina when we can focus on the manmade disaster that is the Bush presidency that has affected millions and how McCain is more of the same.

   Comment by Liem — September 2, 2008 @ 11:57 am

4. Well, I was going to argue with you # 1 and #3 but then KOS called and said they wanted their idiots back.
   At least you seemed to have gotten your marching orders from messiah-central and aren’t attacking Sarah Palin today….
   Interesting….very.

   Comment by christmasghostg — September 2, 2008 @ 12:02 pm

5. So now that the KOS KIDZ have been taken care of, can anyone explain to me why even FOX news has become a non news source?
   All Geraldo all the time, the storm that almost happened on a loop…..but no coverage of the lefties attacking cub scouts, attacking buses with deadly objects, throwing bleach in elderly people’s faces after spitting in them first and the cops not doing a damn thing about it.

   Comment by christmasghost — September 2, 2008 @ 12:05 pm