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Apr. 28th, 2004 11:14 amFound through ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
legalmoose.
ABC is doing a casualties-of-war special. U.S. casualties, of course.
And I have no clue what they are thinking. 600 people is 600 devastated friends and families, 600 hurt social microcosms. It is 600 people too many. But in terms of a war, 600 is nothing. Nothing. It barely even registers as a weekly toll for cancer deaths in the US, never mind a full scale national war. Which is why ABC can actually fit this roll-call into the alloted time.
An utter waste of TV time. For one, it will be dreadfully boring. It will not convey any kind of message, because 500 names just isn't that many. This isn't a day long names-reading at the unfurling of the AIDS quilt, this isn't an endless tally of the dead and fallen in a brutal bloody war that is cutting a swath of mourning accross families all over the land. Well, U.S. families, that is. This is the reading of a list that fits in an hour, probably even with commercials. What it will convey is that the station is just simply out of ideas of how to report on this war -- or just can't be bothered to tally the larger list of casualties: the Iraqi civilians.
And not a word about the wounded on either side. They aren't dead, so they are not noteworthy. If ABC really wanted to hit, read a list of 20.000 people, and what their wounds are. It would take real research to find that, the Pentagon ain't gonna be forthcoming, and it will take more than a throw-away news hour during sweeps.
legalmoose.ABC is doing a casualties-of-war special. U.S. casualties, of course.
And I have no clue what they are thinking. 600 people is 600 devastated friends and families, 600 hurt social microcosms. It is 600 people too many. But in terms of a war, 600 is nothing. Nothing. It barely even registers as a weekly toll for cancer deaths in the US, never mind a full scale national war. Which is why ABC can actually fit this roll-call into the alloted time.
An utter waste of TV time. For one, it will be dreadfully boring. It will not convey any kind of message, because 500 names just isn't that many. This isn't a day long names-reading at the unfurling of the AIDS quilt, this isn't an endless tally of the dead and fallen in a brutal bloody war that is cutting a swath of mourning accross families all over the land. Well, U.S. families, that is. This is the reading of a list that fits in an hour, probably even with commercials. What it will convey is that the station is just simply out of ideas of how to report on this war -- or just can't be bothered to tally the larger list of casualties: the Iraqi civilians.
And not a word about the wounded on either side. They aren't dead, so they are not noteworthy. If ABC really wanted to hit, read a list of 20.000 people, and what their wounds are. It would take real research to find that, the Pentagon ain't gonna be forthcoming, and it will take more than a throw-away news hour during sweeps.
