"Mañana" - The Andalucia Guide & Diary: Television

I have finally succumbed to the temptation of subscription TV - multiple channels, multiple languages, music etc. I have to say, I missed Sky +, but felt I should persevere with Spanish TV for the sake of learning the language.

Well, this morning a Canal + engineer arrived and in minutes had plugged in the new set-top box into the SAT socket in the wall, authorised our viewing card and hey presto, there were a whole lot more channels.

Spanish TV is worthy of a whole blog entry of its own, so I will save that for later, but the first stations I zapped through were the news stations. I realised, following the events in London, that I missed being able to switch on 24 hour English-language news. Canal + features Spanish, French and the main US news networks. All were, of course, covering the horror left following hurricane Katrina.

I could not believe the biased and offensive coverage of the hell in New Orleans offered by most of the US based stations, especically Fox News, the right-wing sister news network to Sky News in the UK. I feel I just have to write down my thoughts as I am so angry and upset about it.

The devastation caused by the hurricane reminded me of the Tsunami last year, yet here the tragedy has hit the richest and most power nation on the planet. Yet, the response and attitude of the media is astonishing. The journalists only focus on the looting and not on the fact that people are dying from lack of medication and fresh This, in the richest country in the world.

The US news media was referring to their devastated fellow US citizens as "refugees" and focused on the break down on law and order rather than holding the US government or public and private sectors accountable for a totally unacceptable response to the hurricane.

Only CNN carried the few dissenting voices of US black Senators, trying to ask for help. It seems that since almost 90 per cent of those affected are poor, disenfranchised people from black communities in the desperately poor southern US, middle-America seems to be somehow removed from the reality and immediacy of the situation. The media should be reminding their audience that fellow-US citizens are dying - not in a distnat war zone, but in the USA.

Instead thousands upon thousands are left on rooftops or crammed into appalling conditions in sports stadiums. Without food, water and with their homes and livelihoods devastated, it is no wonder law and order breaks down. This is no time for US news journalists to pander to the prejudices of middle America. The coverage is not at all balanced. The media in a democracy are their to challenge and inform - to keep democratic values of freedom, accountability and transparancy alive - more and more I fear that America has lost touch with this completely and just wants to make news bulletins that look like trailers for Hollywood blockbusters.

Across the US are thousands upon thousands of empty hotel rooms that could be used for temporary accommodation, there are cruise liners and airliners that could be used for rescue and relocation. The USA has almost incomprehensible resources to help these people but the country is doing so little. Even private businesses such as Walmart are reported as refusing to accept aid vouchers. This is also the country with the largest, best equipped miltary on the planet that is trained to deal with these issues.

Together the private and public sectors in the US are doing too little, and the US news media seem to be doing even less to hold them accountable.

How ironic, that in a nation that can allocate billions of dollars to invade and occupy foreign countries, is unable to deliver justice and aid in its own back yard.

......I'm off my soap box now.