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I, like every other citizen in the U.S., have access to at least three primary sources of information about a given day's events -- national news, local news radio, local news television -- to say nothing of web sources. Today, we have yet another calamity -- the school shooting in Santa Fe, TX -- that happened around eight o'clock in the morning, and here it is nearly four in the afternoon and that shooting is all CNN has discussed.
Is there nothing else going on in the world? Nothing happening in Congress? Nothing happening at the WH? Nothing to share about any of the candidates who won their primary races or who are running in upcoming ones? Have scientists discovered nothing new? Is there nothing worth sharing about the substance of a matter before the SCOTUS?
Santa Fe, TX is a town with a population of ~13K. Even assuming that each one of those persons has 20 friends and loved ones somewhere else in the world, we're only talking about some 260K individuals on the whole damn planet who might have an immediate and direct interest in the details of the shooting. The rest of us simply don't need to have our day occupied with national level reporting of every new piece of information about the event.
By all means, yes, national news outlets should report catastrophic events. For most of them, shootings included, a few minutes (3 to 10, not 30 to 60) once an hour is enough coverage at the national cable news network level. What I'm getting at is that the impact of the event should determine the extent of airtime devoted to covering it.
If you've been listening to CNN, you know as I do that while they've been talking about the event all hour every hour since the story broke, they basically keep saying the same thing over and over and over, and every so often a new fact pops in.
The anchorperson on CNN just stated that "we all have this expectation of instantaneous information." I beg to differ. People in the location of the calamity and those dear to them expect instantaneous information; the local news and radio websites will have that information. Do the rest of us distant observers expect or even want that? I find it hard to believe that we do. I know I don't; nobody I know does. As a mere observer, information that's several hours old is sufficient; indeed, given that time period for the facts to become clear and known, it's probably more complete and accurate.
To wit, the erupting volcano in HI has destroyed the lives of far more people than has the school shooting. National cable news (CNN) mentions it a couple times a day, which seems fitting insofar as the volcano is still erupting. I think the same approach should be used for most calamity reporting.
What else happened today that has more impact than the shooting in Sante Fe, TX? Well (no pun), the non-passage of the Farm Bill is one thing. Frankly, I think it a travesty that the bill made it from Committee to the floor for a vote today and it hadn't even featured prominently in the preceding weeks' news, not even yesterday.
Is there nothing else going on in the world? Nothing happening in Congress? Nothing happening at the WH? Nothing to share about any of the candidates who won their primary races or who are running in upcoming ones? Have scientists discovered nothing new? Is there nothing worth sharing about the substance of a matter before the SCOTUS?
Santa Fe, TX is a town with a population of ~13K. Even assuming that each one of those persons has 20 friends and loved ones somewhere else in the world, we're only talking about some 260K individuals on the whole damn planet who might have an immediate and direct interest in the details of the shooting. The rest of us simply don't need to have our day occupied with national level reporting of every new piece of information about the event.
By all means, yes, national news outlets should report catastrophic events. For most of them, shootings included, a few minutes (3 to 10, not 30 to 60) once an hour is enough coverage at the national cable news network level. What I'm getting at is that the impact of the event should determine the extent of airtime devoted to covering it.
- Periodic mention and updates (no more often than every other hour for a few minutes), but not non-stop, with full "recap," maybe even all or most of a hour, in primetime:
- School shooting or single/mass shooting
- Isolated immediate-material-impact event
- Non-stop (or more often than every couple hours) coverage warranted:
- The Yellowstone supervolcano erupts "massively"
- Wide ranging -- global, national or region-wide -- immediate-material-impact event
If you've been listening to CNN, you know as I do that while they've been talking about the event all hour every hour since the story broke, they basically keep saying the same thing over and over and over, and every so often a new fact pops in.
The anchorperson on CNN just stated that "we all have this expectation of instantaneous information." I beg to differ. People in the location of the calamity and those dear to them expect instantaneous information; the local news and radio websites will have that information. Do the rest of us distant observers expect or even want that? I find it hard to believe that we do. I know I don't; nobody I know does. As a mere observer, information that's several hours old is sufficient; indeed, given that time period for the facts to become clear and known, it's probably more complete and accurate.
To wit, the erupting volcano in HI has destroyed the lives of far more people than has the school shooting. National cable news (CNN) mentions it a couple times a day, which seems fitting insofar as the volcano is still erupting. I think the same approach should be used for most calamity reporting.
What else happened today that has more impact than the shooting in Sante Fe, TX? Well (no pun), the non-passage of the Farm Bill is one thing. Frankly, I think it a travesty that the bill made it from Committee to the floor for a vote today and it hadn't even featured prominently in the preceding weeks' news, not even yesterday.
