Down Memory Lane: Has Haiti Fallen Victim to the MSM's Short Attention Span?

It’s happened before, this tendency of the MSM to walk away from an incomplete story when something new, and usually more political, comes along. Like sheep moving en masse, the eager correspondents run off in a pack to chase the new news.

It happens…it did back in 1979.

On November 4, 1979, when Iranian “students” took over the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, a 444-day saga began. If you weren’t tuned-in then, here’s just one image from that day.

Although little happened for months on end, the network evening news-readers counted up the days of the “crisis” like we count up the deficit these days. For President Jimmy Carter, the no-news of the daily-news brought political death by 444 cuts.

What’s been largely erased from our collective memory is that, up until that November 4, another story had dominated the daily news cycle for months. Through November 3, day-after-day-after-day the MSM had chronicled the tragic ordeal of tens of thousands of Cambodian refugees crammed in tent camps along the border with Thailand, often crossing over the line to escape the genocide of the Khmer Rouge and their killing fields.

Here are just two images of the thousands from that story.

Then, on November 4, 1979, media coverage of the Cambodian refugees disappeared. Their story went dark. It was as though the Cambodian refugees all suddenly evaporated. They were there on November 3, then – finger snap – gone on the fourth.

So, are we seeing this media trapdoor effect happen with the story in Haiti?

Remember how, against the backdrop of Caribbean foliage, CNN’s Anderson Cooper breathlessly reported the earthquake carnage? Remember how NBC’s Brian Williams did a touch-and-go at the Port-au-Prince Airport – the big dog reporting live from Haiti in casual attire? Remember how FOX’s Shepherd Smith tried, on-air, to facilitate the transfer of an adopted Haitian child to the U.S. couple who lacked only a signature from the U.S. Department of State to bring the child to America? Shep to the rescue.

Remember, too, how President Obama formally marched out a line-up of his chiefs to stand behind him as he explained our first response? And how Vice President Biden catalogued what the U.S. was immediately doing to bring relief?

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And, don’t forget, there was the Special U.S. Envoy to Haiti working the crowd:

That was then.

Where’s the MSM now? Seems they’ve moved on. Things must not be going well there.