Often times in the past I’ve found fault with Florida pols  during Legislative Session who have no idea what is going on abroad when US interest at stake. During the 1999 Legislative Session when the US and NATO went to war in Kosovo, I found fellow legislative staff and legislators themselves mostly unaware that we were actually in a war with Serbia/Montenegro (Yugoslavia).

But this week if Florida pols are unaware of the major developments in Crimea and Ukraine, they cannot be faulted. Cable news is largely to blame. If folks in Tallahassee may feel the crisis of two weeks ago passed,  they would sadly not be alone in a vacuum this time around.

On Thursday, President Obama introduced a new round of sweeping sanctions against Russia who have now for all intents and purposes annexed Crimea. Vladimir Putin retaliated with sanctions and travel restrictions of his own. A high stakes game between the world’s two greatest military powers was intensifying. However, if you watched CNN in prime time on Thursday night and did not follow the ticker at the bottom of the screen you had no idea.

On Thursday evening, CNN aired a report on the escalating crisis at 6:58pm at the very end of an extended “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”  That was the first first mention of Ukraine in Blitzer’s program that hour. Then in the next two hours, of “Erin Burnett Outfront” and “Anderson Cooper 360,” the network spent every available minute on the Malaysian Airlines mystery and did not mention Putin or Obama’s actions.

Over on MSNBC, Hardball focused on the normal political machinations while FOX News was similarly in plane mode. While both networks unlike CNN, did mention the increased sanctions from both sides, they were mentioned more in passing or as a secondary news item.

No doubt exists that the missing Malaysian Airlines jet is a tragedy. But the nonstop, wall to wall coverage on cable news channels while the European continent is in the middle of its biggest potential military crisis since the end of World War II is irresponsible. Thank goodness despite the efforts to proclaim them dead we still have newspapers. Without newspapers and the websites papers run, any information about this week’s events related to Ukraine would be far and few between.

Some of the best newspaper writers have defected to cable news, but left behind are enough veteran writers and correspondents to make the papers indispensable while their rivals on the tube are simply unwatchable at times.