earthquake

I thought this whole thing felt a little surreal to me because I didn't have the normal media barrage I get when something like this happens. A few headlines on the internet and that's about all I knew. I'm really used to sitting in front of the TV and watching results come in for hours.

Then we went to Kopong Thom and the place we stayed actually had a TV in the room. Hey hey CNN. Watched that pretty much whenever we were in the room, and I have now had my info fix.

After that I think the surreality may be a result of me actually being as close as I am. My plans might have had me in the south of Thailand, and I'm not THAT far away right now. And then there's also the sheer scope of the thing and we all know that probably has the most to do with not truly being able to understand.

I don't know what the news coverage is like at home, but CNN International is doing its best to cover the whole thing. Continuous as far as I saw, with even the weather people doing additional research on Tsunamis to add into their regular forecasts. They talk about the local populations and have human interest stories on them, but of course more of their coverage (65-75%) is on foreigners. I'm sure the newsrooms had discussions as far as what to cover.

In the end though the audience wants to hear from people they can relate to and that means tourists speaking English, German or French (for the most part). That's where teh dollars pounds and euros come from so that's who you have to keep happy. At the same time I think they're doing on okay job covering the local stuff as well. Let's just hope they and the rest of us remember the local stuff 2-3 years down the road when people are still rebuilding.