Yes, the LA Media Did/Has Ignored the Beirut Bombings

At least the media, I listened to and watched.

The media which I actually generally like and trust.

There's an article written on Vox, "Did the media ignore the Beirut bombings?  Or did the media?"

The author says that "the media has covered [the Beirut bombings] extensively."

That only true if you have access to the internet AND know/knew where to look.  The majority of what he cites are online publications, with the exception of CNN, which I don't have.

I wouldn't have had access to that knowledge if all I had was local FM radio and TV.

There are days when I'm on the internet all day, and get news really quickly thanks to Twitter, but that's not often.

On November 12 and November 13th, a Thursday and a Friday, I wasn't on the internet all day, so I was mostly getting news from radio and TV.

I was in the car listening to 89.3 KPCC around 1 PM, November 13th. 

The BBC Newshour just began reporting about the attacks on Paris.

The severity and importance of the attacks didn't hit me until the coverage of the attacks bled over onto the next news hour during The World, and then onto All Things Considered.  It was only after that continuous coverage that I got the idea, "oh shit, it's their 9/11."

Once I got home at around 6 PM, my wife was watching the KNBC News, incidentally KPCC's media partner. 

My wife, also a KPCC listener, asked me, "did something happen in France?"

I said something to the effect of :yes, a few shootings."  We watched NBC for more details.  It was all jarring.

Leading up to this day, on Thursday, also in the car, all I could recall on KPCC was talk about the protests happening on campuses and the Officer Involved shootings in LA County, both important issues here. 

But there was no continuous updating by the BBC nor The World nor All Things Considered.  It was just a normal day, KPCC bringing up very interesting issues, but no alarm bells ringing.

I didn't have awareness of the Beirut bombings that had actually preceded the Paris bombings until Sunday morning while browsing Twitter and being curious about what Muslims had to say about the Paris bombings.  I ended up re-tweeting what they said.

One of the Muslim Tweeters posted a link to the New York Times' story about the bombings in Beirut.

This past Monday, November 16th, I watched a little more of my local news on NBC.  They made mention about progress on the investigations of the bombers in Paris.  I go to the Today Show news website.  Still no mention of Beirut.  I go to the NBC News website, the World Section.  Plenty of articles pertaining to the Paris Terror Attacks.  Not one of Beirut.