A few minutes before 5:00pm last Tuesday the Mouth of Hell opened up and destroyed a city of more than 2 million people. It destroyed the port, the roads, and leveled the buildings of government.
As I type, less than 93 hours have elapsed since the horror began.
Yet, that has not stopped our beloved 4th estate from running a stream of, "Where is the help?" motifs. They have detailed the arrival of aid to the non-functioning airport. They have detailed the efforts to coordinate flights and unload planes with no equipment and no logistical support. They have mentioned in passing that there are no trucks and heavy equipment to move supplies over roads uncleared. They have shown a port facility with no remaining docks and no cranes to life cargo from ships.
But none of their own reporting has slowed down the cry of "Where is the help?"
Colin Powell and the Commanding General on the ground have all tried, using small words, to explain that Haiti is a violent society and, any movement of supplies into the city before security apparatus is in place could result in riots and blood shed. It could put the aid workers at risk, and result in even more death and destruction. It could place American military troops at risk of setting off a conflagration.
But that is not the story.
Instead, we are treated not as mature adults, not as world citizens eager to help, but as children, needing to be frightened and brought to our knees with stories of the failure to provide the immediate gratification we have been trained to expect.
It's been less than 94 hours and the boo-boo still hurts. The problem has not been solved. The city of Port-au-Prince is still in rubble.
I can't figure out if they are simply determined to paint this as another Katrina, in spite of the heroic efforts of the Obama Administration to mobilize almost immediately, or if they are so immature that they really believe that just dropping pallets of water into the midst of a crowd is the proper way to provide relief.
People are suffering and other people are trying to help.
It is really time for the US media to find news readers and producers of sufficient maturity to deliver information on the disaster in accurate and informed ways that do not imply failure before the rescue has begun. It is time to recognize, and train Americans, to understand that nothing 700 miles away can be made to happen instantly. It is time to acknowledge that people will die, have died, are dying, and the world is reacting as fast as it possibly can to disaster of this magnitude.
Grow up MSNBC and CNN. Stop fighting the last war, reporting the last disaster, and looking for failure before the process has begun.