Student reporter Andrew Kingsbury called out CNN’s Abby Phillip and the legacy media for failing to accurately cover the neglect Hurricane Helene victims continue to face.
Kingsbury asked why, given the government’s failure to address a situation that harms the American people, the national media seemed uninterested in the story.
Phillip’s response was to admit that FEMA had failed to respond, but that the coverage could also be muted because of the political implications.
Andrew Kingsbury: Hi, I’m Andrew Kingsbury. I am an extension school alum. I was recently in Western North Carolina in the Asheville area, responding to a hurricane. I was there for about two weeks, and the understanding I got was that they were being abandoned by the government, but also not only the local media and the press, but the national press.
The operation that is part of this is the first in the history of America that there is an FAA-registered disaster relief helicopter operation, which was carried out by a civilian because there was a vacancy that was a Green Beret Master Sergeant, he actually… He lost his wife and daughter for a couple of days. He couldn’t find her. After meeting, he realized, “Where is the helicopter? I want to find out why. I just want to call my friends and ask them to bring their own helicopters.
I stopped at the National Press Club in DC on the way back. I’ve talked to many members of the press here, the Washington Post reporter, Katie Couric even, and no one understands the level of this abandonment. I want to end with this question, which is not my own question. I guess that’s my question, and the people there.
This is Matt Van Swol if that’s how his name is pronounced, in X, saying, “It’s been 45 days since Helene hit Western North Carolina. There’s still no clean drinking water in the city of Asheville. Garbage is swinging from 20-foot trees. Boy -the kids in Yancey County won’t be going back to school until the end of November. Where are the reporters? We still need help.”
So did I, based on my experience, I believe at this point, my objective experience going to the National Press Club, talking to various national level reporters here and around the country, and they didn’t have a clue of what was going on. in, what happened, and it is still going on.
Order Matt Van Swol’s questions, please.
Abby Phillips: Yes, I totally take questions and also criticism. I think it’s true, it’s true. I wonder the same thing. I think that…
Andrew Kingsbury:Can we get some reporters in there? yes.
Abby Phillips:No, I mean, look, I’m sitting here thinking, I’m going to take it back, right? Because I can give you many reasons, perhaps, why there is no sustained interest in what is going on there. In general I think journalists have not been very good at staying with communities long after they have been affected. That’s just the general thing, isn’t it?
I think it’s especially… tt is in this case, it’s especially challenging because maybe it’s remote from the location and the way that newspapers and television networks are fixated in the surrounding city where they are. I think this is partly the decline of local news. I think it’s partly the degree that hurricanes become extraordinarily politicized or become part of an unfolding political story.
They are all reasons, but they are not reasons. So I don’t want you to think I’m justifying it. I just think that’s probably why, and I think it’s not true at all, and it should be rectified. I think it’s true, in a way, what we discussed earlier, that there is a lot of attention in the rhetoric and not as much attention in what is actually happening.
What happened in Asheville. I asked that question after the hurricane because I was sitting at the table and I had a Republican say, “The Biden administration is deliberately not helping Republicans because they’re Republicans.”
And I had to go back to the news desk and say, “What’s going on? Do we know what’s going on?” And he replied, “We’re not serious.”
Due to various reasons, including access to some of these places that have not been accessible for a long time. So it’s okay. It needs to be corrected. When we think back to Katrina and the consequences of that and the devastation of that, there is a whole generation of people who come out of the mind that the government treated different people because of the same.
Maybe this is one of those scenarios. It was one of the biggest hurricanes of the last century. We have to face it, and we haven’t. I think your question is really well taken.
Watch:
Student reporter calls out CNN’s Abby Phillip for ignoring Hurricane Helene coverage. Abby Phillip agreed and responded that the area was ‘far away’ for proper coverage:
Andrew Kingsbury: “I was recently in western North Carolina in the Asheville area, responding to… pic.twitter.com/Gi2szaoTBQ– Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) November 19, 2024
@abbydphillip
“The same network that would send countless ‘journalists’ to Ukraine like Malcolm Nance, wants to pretend they don’t have enough resources to send reporters to Georgia and North Carolina.
It’s not like CNN is headquartered in Georgia, oh wait…”– Julia Poppen (@JPoppen) November 20, 2024
