" Nobody in the game of football should be called a genius. A genius is somebody like Norman Einstein" Joe Theismann

Hard to find but a few working in electronic media that one would call a genius this morning. The media coverage of the gulf disaster was poor to average at best.

Slate's Jack Shafer gets it right with his "News You Can Lose - What I hate about cable TV journalism"

hate it when the news networks pair music with montages of newsworthy footage

hate the use of undated footage, especially when it's two or three days old, that runs as "video wallpaper" as the anchors talk about looting, the breached levee, death, destruction, or what have you

hate the conspicuous lack of maps illustrating where the camera and reporters are in New Orleans, Biloxi, Baton Rouge, Mobile, or elsewhere

hate the fundamental dishonesty of 24/7 coverage

hate the opportunism of Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera, who grandstanded at the Convention Center on the Friday night Hannity & Colmes show with babies he borrowed from trapped New Orleanian mothers

hate the completely un-newsworthy "Fox News Alert" Chyrons that routinely run on the bottom of the Fox News Channel screen

hate the absence of context and continuity

hate the lack of input from knowledgeable outsiders

hate the absence of self-criticism

Read all of Jack's comments here and here and here

Kudos to Clear Channel and Entercom for the above average coverage by their ad hoc network, United Radio of New Orleans. Listened to some damn good radio coverage via WWL's stream. Check out The Big 870 and listen to the network broadcast here

Jeff Jarvis has created a thoughtful, albeit dense, post regarding next steps. Read it here