Shepard Smith is Starting to Annoy Me

I like his style. I like his delivery. I generally like Fox News. But Shepard Smith is really starting to blow things out of proportion.

I first noticed this during his Katrina coverage, there have been plenty of stories about how the news media – including Shep when he was in NOLA – was out of control when it came to reporting rumors as facts.

He was the ultimate drama queen through the entire event, and as the weeks passed, more and more of the “big stories” just disappeared from the MSM.

• What happened to that seven year old girl that was raped and had her throat cut?
• What about the hundred bodies that were stacked up in the Superdome’s freezer? The 200 dead?
• What about the gunfire? Snipers shooting at people? Shooting at helicopters?

I just found a March 2006 article written by a collection of editors from Popular Mechanics entitled Debunking the Myths of Hurricane Katrina. It is a must read for everyone and if you’ve already read it, go through it again. I wonder if Shep went through this article and took the time to look back at his coverage and do a self-evaluation?

Probably not, he’s part of the Dive by Media. That’s a term that Rush Limbaugh coined during the past couple of years. It’s simply defined as when the media swoops in to cover a story, goes wall-to-wall with it for hours or days, relays every rumor they hear and interviews anyone they can find that will speculate about the story. Then, they split, never to come back since they have to go find another hot story.

Last week, Shep used the term “bloodbath” when referring to a 167 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. What? Is he nuts? Who writes this stuff for him?

To put this in perspective, that’s a 1.2 percent drop Shep. Come on now. If that’s a bloodbath, what would he call the 6.4 percent gain over the 11 trading days after the Thanksgiving break?

I propose a ban on reporting the point changes in the various stock benchmarks like the DJIA, NASDAQ, S&P 500 and the new Fox 50. Let’s report percentage changes instead, but I guess a 100 point drop sounds more dramatic than a point seven (.7) percent drop.

Related Articles on the Net:

Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated
Popular Mechanics Takes on Katrina Myths
Katrina: Myths and Reality