what will happen to the news?

what will happen to the news when the Asian tsunami gets pushed to the back of the news.

What will they report on?
Bullitens may have to be shorter!
There may not even be a one hour tsunami special on every channel!

I say this due to the overwhelming and obsessive coverage by the news. I wouldn't be so bad, but just to say the death count has gone up by 3 - it is not worth the tv space. Meanwhile other news gets pushed back.

we all know about the disaster and are all wanting to help, but it is taking over our lives. This sort of thing is an occupational hazard living in that part of the world - it goes with the territory.

As well informed as I am, the journalists are actually pleased there is something to report on. This time of year is notorious for little news!

say that to the poeple in South East Asia that have lost their homes, jobs and famillies.

Seriously, you've answered you're own question really, up until Tuesday there really was little else in terms of news to report. From Tuesday things have changed with the political parties starting back up again and other news items of importence taking place.

This news could have been reported,, as you said, like a running commerntary of the death toll, but the coverage I have seen has been much more than that, looking at how peoples lives have been effected, the aid effort and the politics of it all.

And I think if the death toll was only rising by three each time we all won't be so touched by what has happened. The number of people that have died is enormous and that makes the story one of the biggest that has happened in years.

Now do me a favour and give me an example of another diaster that killed as many people. It's quite serious believe it or not.

It hasnt taken up all the coverage as much as 9/11 did.
I remeber the day of the terroist attacks BBC1 stopped once to my knowledge to show EastEnders (unbelivable,even if there was a mass plague and there was no-one left, I bet BBC1 would still show EastEnders!!) but most of the time was spent on a simulcast with N24
I dont think this has happend this time,even though in my view it is more significant and relevant to us.

World War 2

well, just a quick thing, a few years ago, they had massive floods in Bangladesh that killed over 300,000. That didn't get any where near as much coverage.

I can't find any reference to anything like that; an ariticle on Wikipedia says that "since June 2004 Bangladesh has been ravaged by its worst floods in 6 years, which have killed 628 people so far and covered about sixty percent of the country."

In terms of coverage remember the issue of consonance: while thousands of people die in horrific disasters across the world, very few in living memory (or recorded history) have so arbitrarily and suddenly taken so many lives.

Catastrophe caused by humans can be mitigated: we can say that the Holocaust was 'evil', we can blame Africa's problems on economy. But there is absolutely no rationalisation or justification for a 9-mag earthquake, or a devastating tsunami. For both of them to happen on Boxing Day and to kill 150,000 people at a stroke is just breathtakingly shocking.

Whereas, in Sudan, it's just more people in poor African countries killing their neighbours because there isn't enough water. Which, sadly, in our eyes, is just what poor people with scant access to food or water do. We're used to it.

Which is why so much news coverage has been given to this tsunami.

Close enough - the Iraqi election is due this month.

nbc nightly news had the first story on iraq, and even Brian Williams said, that the story is quite serious, it has replaced the biggest story of the week.

I think there was an earthquake in India about four years ago that saw 200,000 killed.....

But World War 2 wasn't a disaster, someone started it.

Herculaneum and Pompeii anyone?