On Sun, Aug 24, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> Earthquake coverage was the one thing aside from car chases that SoCal > news outlets did well. I can still picture Paul Moyers at the newsdesk with > his sleeves rolled up and tie loosened, throwing it to whatever cub > reporter drew the short straw and had to go to Cal Tech to await the > official proclamation of the size of the quake. Then there were the other > reporters who had to drive around LA looking for signs of damage, > interviewing drunk, stoned, and senile men on the street. Footage of a > ruptured fire hydrant or a sink hole were TV gold. The coverage usually > ended once the county officials had released the apx. cost of the damage. > > None of it was actual news (just like a car chase), as all the events > being discussed had already happened and there was nothing new to report, > but darned if it wasn't thrilling to watch. > Except, I would say a lot of it is real news. I lived through several significant quakes when I grew up in LA, and several up here in NOCAL; in the immediate aftermath, it is important to know some basic information: are their buildings on fire? Are the bridges and overpasses safe? Which hospitals have been effected? I remember back in 1971 (Sylmar earthquake - I lived about 3 miles from the epicenter) we had significant worries about local damns that were in danger of failing, and a nearby hospital collapsed (several friends of my family were eventually found to have been killed there). If everything is okay, people who are anxious and uncertain want to hear that there are no real problems; if you can't find friends and relatives, you want some idea of what kinds of threats might be facing them. Of course these days we had instant access to lots of information online - I knew within 10 minutes where the epicenter was and about how large it was, and was able to check in with family and friends on FB and Twitter to make sure everyone was okay, and that even closer to the epicenter (we are actually about 40 miles from that) property and human damage was not extensive. But the lack of any television coverage for about an hour (for the record, ABC 7 was the first local to go on the air with coverage at a little after 4:00 am, followed by CBS 5 and NBC 3 about 15 minutes later) meant that we really did not know the extent of the damage and threats faced by our friends and neighbors. Once the newscasts did come on we realized that there were several fires (it looks like 4 mobile homes were destroyed), there was a lot of loss of power, and lots of broken gas and water mains, all in the City of Napa. A lot of older and historic buildings down in Napa city are also damaged and threatened. Most of this is not of much interest nationally or even across the state, but locally, it is the kind of information that you either need, or want, to have as soon as possible. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
