NBC News Reports Luger Killed By Killer Whale In Chile

Let me make sure I understand this. When a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, Nightly News practically evacuated 30 Rock and sent everyone down to Port-au-Prince (I'm still waiting for an explanation about why it was necessary to send Al Roker down there). But when an 8.8 earthquake hit Chile, they sent only Mark Potter and Ann Curry. Two reporters. Heck, they sent a news team to the Republic of Georgia to cover the funeral of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, but they sent only two reporters to cover the earthquake in Chile? And Ann Curry isn't even a news reporter. She's a celebrity/entertainment/lifestyles reporter for The Today Show coffee klatch. (Her style of reporting can be summed up as "I'm going to do everything I can to make the viewers cry.") It's obvious what's happening here. The earthquake hit Chile during the Olympics, and NBC News was not about to deplete their Olympic coverage even with only one day of competition remaining. I can guarantee that if the Haiti earthquake had hit during the Olympics, NBC News would have barely covered it. NBC didn't even air Nightly News on Sunday (on the east coast, at least) because of the hockey game. Apparently, Olympic hockey is more important than an 8.8 earthquake that has killed 800 people so far. Maybe if some Chilean lugers had died in the earthquake (or if the tsunami had caused killer whales to come out of the ocean and attack people), the Nightly News producers would have sent more reporters down there. Nightly News--covering the world. When it's convenient and profitable, that is.

I wonder if Ann Curry will complain about her accommodations in Chile like she did in Haiti. On her Jan. 14 Daily Nightly blog, Curry wrote, "All hotels are down, so we are sleeping on the tarmac...In all cases, the ground is hard, so we are using blankets, pieces of foam, some of us even suitcases to sleep on top of. We are worried about rats, which are numerous. There are lots of mosquitoes. Hard to sleep because the planes are so loud, especially the c130s. We have to negotiate for bathrooms in nearby buildings, and are currently without one. We brought in water, but are running out of food, which now consists of MREs. We hope for more supplies tomorrow...There are no whiners amongst us." So after whining about the conditions, Curry says there are no whiners. Maybe she should have asked the Haitian people for some help.