Did Nashville Flooding Get Enough Coverage?
Written by Joe Strupp
Published
Blame the Times Square bomb case, the Gulf oil spill, or just a lack of interest perhaps? But it seems clear that the Nashville flood that has caused some $1 billion in damages and killed at least 30 people is getting less news coverage than it might deserve.
“With two other 'disasters' dominating the headlines -- the Times Square bombing attempt and the Gulf oil spill -- the national media seems to largely have ignored the plight of Music City since the flood waters began inundating its streets on Sunday,” writes Newsweek's Andrew Romano. “A cursory Google News search shows 8,390 hits for 'Times Square bomb' and 13,800 for 'BP oil spill.' 'Nashville flood,' on the other hand, returns only 2,430 results, many of them local.”
Adds Betsy Phillips of Nashville Scene: “In a world of 24-hour news, when said national news channels will devote hours of programming to interviewing people who sleep with famous people, and when they'll interrupt that programming to bring you speculation on the identity of a guy in grainy surveillance footage, it was mind-boggling to flip by CNN, MSNBC, and FOX on Sunday afternoon and see not one station even occasionally bringing their viewers footage of the flood, news of our people dying.”