Las Vegas court house shooting: the details
January 6th, 2010 at 12:25am
Given that I spent so much time this morning tracking the news coverage of the Las Vegas court house shooting, I thought it would be a good idea to bring you the actual story courtesy of Channel 13 Action News.
My sincere condolences to the family of Stanley Cooper, the court security officer who was killed in the gunfire.
I appreciate that, for the vast majority of readers of this blog, this story is not particularly relevant as most readers of this blog are Australian, however it does tie in with my previous story about the delay in getting this story out nationally and to the world. Regardless of whether this story is relevant to you, watch the video…what is extraordinary about this is just how good the local news coverage is in the United States, especially when compared to local news coverage over here.
Las Vegas as a city, has a slightly higher population that Canberra (an extra couple of hundred thousand people) and, when you include the surrounding areas, is probably in line with Perth. Despite this, the local news coverage over there is far more thorough and regular than what you will find anywhere over here. Many TV stations have multiple full-length local news bulletins each day, for example. Additionally, this level of coverage is mirrored in many places right across the US…and yet it seems that we can only get this level of detail over here when a dust storm invades Sydney.
I suppose that a lot of this can be put down to the fact that the US has a much greater concentration of inland settlement than Australia, and as such has much more room and incentive for a competitive news business. In many ways I consider this to be one of Australia’s great problems…we are so coast-bound that we inhibit our own growth and prosperity as a nation. If more people lived inland, our coastal cities wouldn’t be choked and over-stretched, the potential for inland industry would grow significantly and, best of all, would probably lead to a self-fulfilling increase in inland rainfall based on more water being used and evaporating, which in turn helps our farming industry to sustain population growth.
Anyway, back on topic. I tip my hat to the staff at Channel 13 Action News. Your coverage of this story was excellent.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: General News,Samuel's Editorials,TV/Radio/Media
