Hurricanes

The paper of record for upstate New York is at it again, letting their readers know that Republicans and Tea Party members should essentially do as they say, not as they do. The Albany Times Union has criticized Republicans for playing political games with a recently defeated bill that provides $3.65 billion for disaster assistance.  The problem, it seems, is that the bill included offsets…

In his Wednesday report on federal disaster aid in a time of vast national debt, New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse treated liberal Democrats as the epitome of Washington wisdom and moderation: “Emphasis on Federal Austerity Changes Dynamics of Disaster Relief.” While self-described socialist Bernie Sanders was only termed an “independent,” Hulse managed to put an ideological…

At the top of Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer warned: "Record flooding in the wake of Irene leading to new evacuations and dramatic rescues across the Northeast....As FEMA's disaster fund runs dangerously low." Moments later he announced the agency was "running into a serious money crunch because of Irene and in-fighting in Washington." In a later report, correspondent Tom Costello…

Al Sharpton has never found a crisis he couldn’t exploit – even when they don’t exist – his claim to fame. On Friday’s pre-hurricane episode of his MSNBC show, he warned “Hurricane Irene is nonpartisan” and was threatening both red and blue states. That nonpartisanship doesn’t extend to hurricane coverage on TV, where liberals once again boast about the glories of government disaster aid, and…

Tim Graham, the Media Research Center's Director of Media Analysis, appeared on the Fox Business Channel, Monday, to discuss the media's hyperbolic coverage of "Hurricane" Irene.     Graham asserted, "Well, I don't think there's any doubt that the media are interested in trying to cover this 24/7 and it's a little hard to sell it as tropical storm coverage for hours and hours." Speaking of Al…

In the days leading up to Hurricane Irene's march through the Northeast,  journalists repeatedly suggested that the storm was yet more evidence of climate change. "The scale of Hurricane Irene, which could cause more extensive damage along the Eastern Seaboard than any storm in decades, is reviving an old question: are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?" asked…

Never let a natural disaster go to waste. In August 2010, New York Times environmental reporter Justin Gillis reacted to that summer's heat waves and flooding with “In Weather Chaos, a Case for Global Warming” on the front page of the Times. So it was no surprise he took advantage of Hurricane Irene in Sunday’s edition, “Seeing Irene as Harbinger of a Change in Climate.” Gillis’s latest…

On Monday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer introduced a panel discussion on whether media coverage of Hurricane Irene was overdone by proclaiming: "Was this storm over-hyped? In some ways, it's a one-sentence argument, this storm killed more than 20 people and 4 million people are without power, and clearly there's misery and destruction. How could it have been over-hyped?" Weatherman Al…

CBS's Bill Plante inserted the oft-repeated media spin about the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina into his report on Monday's Early Show. Plante ignored the poor handling of Katrina at the state and local levels, spotlighting instead how "the stranded and homeless wandered the streets of New Orleans" as Bush flew overhead. But three days earlier, CBS brought on former New…

If only George W. Bush had ordered home delivery of some pizzas during Katrina. On Meet the Press, David Gregory relayed how, before the tropical storm arrived on Saturday, Newark Mayor Cory Booker delivered a few pizzas to a shelter, then Gregory marveled at the “contrast...between President Bush regretting he had a flyover of the storm zone and here's Mayor Booker personally delivering pizzas…

With Irene downgraded to a tropical storm, it is clear that this weather event has become another example of America's media hyping every potential crisis into a full-blown calamity before the fact. Observing such was George Will on ABC's "This Week" Sunday who told his fellow panelists, "Whatever else you want to say about journalism, it shouldn’t subtract from the nation’s understanding and…

Imagine this scenario: A meteor the size of Texas is due to smash directly into New York City in three days and it is much too late to send Bruce Willis up there to save the metropolitan area from Armageddon. You can read all about it in the New York Times...but only on page A17. Sounds pretty bizarre, right? Well, in reality that is exactly what happened on Thursday in regards to Hurricane…

Over the past three years, the number of believers in anthropogenic global warming has been on a steady decline, while the number of believers in natural planetary warming and cooling cycle has been on a steady incline. The shrinking pool of people who still swear by Al Gore's Hollywood version of the climate trend is especially populated with journalists and politicians who refuse admit they…

When ABC and NBC interview First Ladies, both the tone and substance of the discussion tend to hinge on whether the husband is an Obama or a Bush. On Wednesday's ABC "World News" and NBC "Nightly News," network correspondents sat down with Michelle Obama in South Africa for exclusive interviews in which they lobbed softball questions and avoided her husband's policies. But in interviews with…