MSNBC is one of the more well known liberal news stations, and the one that I personally watch the most. Not only do I like most of the hosts that appear on their news channel (thought Reverend Sharpton is not a favorite of mine), but MSNBC has an excellent handle when it comes to social media. When I can’t sit down and watch the news in the morning with my coffee, or even throughout the day, I depend on my laptop and smartphone for news updates through social media. MSNBC has nearly a million likes on Facebook, and 2 prominent twitter accounts: one simply called MSNBC with nearly 200,000 followers, and one for breaking news with over 300,000 followers. It was these social media sources that I checked when news of Hurricane Sandy’s impact began to surface.

When it was first discovered that Sandy would indeed impact NY, NJ, and other East coats areas, MSNBC began to post articles from their own website as to how to prepare for the storm if you lived on the East coast. For those not living on the East coast, the rest of the public was updated on the preparations in major cities such as New York and how they prepped the underground subway for potential flooding. Once Sandy did hit shore, MSNBC did equal coverage on how the storm was being dealt with, as well as how the presidential candidates were handling the situation. For example, there was much attention on if the candidates would be touring ravaged areas of coastline with the state governors, as well as comments made by state governors about the presidential candidate’s reactions to the crisis. They also offered advice to readers as to how they could help storm ravaged areas, and forwarded updates by the Red Cross on their Facebook and Twitter as to what supplies were needed/not needed.

Being a liberal news station, MSNBC tended to focus a lot on the support and praise President Obama received across the board, even from Republican Governor Chris Christie. The only real news Governor Romney received was how in his view, states should deal with weather emergencies on their own; or when Fox Newscasters asked Governor Christie if he would be touring the Jersey coastline with Romney and the governor said, roughly: “I really don’t care. I have a job to do, this isn’t about politics”.

Overall, MSNBC’s coverage of the disaster was thorough, though with a slight political angle. I didn’t much appreciate the politically angled stories personally, as I saw this as something we all needed to come together on as Americans, not be divided apart by election reminders. The most important, though sadly not as prominent, stories were those updating the public on the status of the cities which had been hit and what we could do to help. Save the political slights, it makes the network seem like they have an angle and that their candidate is benefitting from a terrible event.