ABC World News Tonight

Nurses General Nursing

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On "World News Tonight" last night pregnant golfer, Brenda Corrie Kuehn, stated "I'm a little bit confused, actually by the attention that I'm getting."

Well frankly Brenda, so am I.

I had heard that ABC World News Tonight was doing a piece on the nursing crisis and it would be aired last night. So I made sure I was in front of my T.V. ready and waiting.

At the top of the show the topics were given, pregnant golfer, Bush's daughters drinking behavior, etc, etc. No mention of the nursing crisis. I thought to myself figures! I turned it off.

Then this morning I find out the piece did air! So I went to the ABC.com website to try to find a video clip.

No clip is available on the nursing crisis. But you can view the pregnant golfer, and play and replay, "I'm a little bit confused, actually..."

Or you can watch a video called, "Italy's full of momma's boy's", or "High School Senior Breaks Track Record", or "California Wine Celebrates Anniversary", or last but not least "New technologies make aging easier". But you cannot watch the nursing spot, discussing a national health care crisis.

You can however, listen to the audio of the entire broadcast. And if you KNOW that the nursing crisis is mentioned about midway, you can fast forward to it.

Peter Jennings admonishes in the opening statement that nursing is, "a profession not to be taken for granted". Why do I feel that that was just so much lip service? Why does ABC news give a pregnant golfer, the Bush twins drinking habits, and Italian momma's boys, higher priority than the nursing crisis?

Am I being overly sensitive or does it seem that the televised media is doing their best to downplay or ignore the nursing crisis?

It seems like there have been hundreds of articles in print, but nothing televised. Maybe I just don't understand how the media works, but this just seemed so blatant,( the no mention at the top of the show, and now no video clip).

And why have we seen no indepth stories on the nursing shortage. We had "Hopkins 24/7" make the doctors heroes, but the nurses were deemed uninteresting. It took the Discovery chanel to do the nursing story. But no major network? Why? Or have I just missed them?

To add injury to insult, the spot just before on the broadcast was about the job market. The reporter states, "the best job prospects are for students majoring in computer science, business, and engineering."

Sheez! Don't they get it? With the kind of press nursing gets we'll never get out of this shortage!

ABC news, "START HEARING NURSES!", and make it a national priority that everyone else does too!

If you'd like to listen to the broadcast here is a link. Click on "Audio" on the right side. You have to fast forward to about midpoint.

WNT6/1

[ June 02, 2001: Message edited by: PeggyOhio ]

AnneD

24 Posts

I fear nurses will never be important until those power/rich/famous are laid up in the hospital,hand on the call light with no one answering. Unless things change radically...this may happen in our lifetime. There may come a point when even power/money/position may not get one the type of care that has for so long been taken for granted. I make it a pont to educate someone every day but frankly I am getting tired. I am counting the time to retirement and doing all that I can to get out as soon as possible.

oramar

5,758 Posts

I am going to email them and tell them that though the story was very good it needed to be longer. Other than that I would give the actual article an A-. The minus being for the lenght.

PeggyOhio

157 Posts

Please use this link to make it known to ABC we want more coverage on the problems in nursing. Enough of Jenna Bush already!

ABC

[ June 02, 2001: Message edited by: PeggyOhio ]

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