A Brief Note on Hurricane Dorian and Media Bias

Without going into a long discussion on media bias, there is one bias that is beyond doubt.  That the US media are US-centric should not be surprising, although they often take it to unjustifiable extremes.  And their coverage of the US focuses inordinately on the New York-DC corridor.

The ruins of Paradise, California

We saw this with Hurricane Sandy.  There was immense coverage of the hurricane and its effects on New York City.  Once the hurricane moved off into New England, our news media lost interest.  We saw this last year in the Florida Panhandle, when our new media scarcely even noticed Hurricane Michael because of their focus on the Congressional elections.  We saw it in 2016 when catastrophic flooding in Louisiana went almost uncovered because of the focus on the Presidential election.  We saw it last year when the city of Paradise California was burned down with some media attention, but hardly what the magnitude of the disaster called for.  So, yes, even New England and California get neglected by our national media in favor of the New York to DC corridor.

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Which leads to the subject of Hurricane Dorian.  I wouldn't really expect the Bahamas to get the sort of coverage the US gets, and I note to the news media's credit that they have given some attention to the devastation in the Bahamas.  But when it comes to the US, the focus has been rather obsessively on Florida, as if our media don't really care what happens to Georgia or the Carolinas.  And yes, I get that the hurricane's initial path seemed headed straight toward Florida, so the focus on Florida was justified.  But other states are just as much in harm's way now, and getting a lot less attention.

Am I too cynical in suspecting that is because a lot more of our big name bigwigs (including Trump with Mar-a-Lago) have homes or second homes in Florida than Georgia or the Carolinas?