320 Years of History
Gold Member
If you are a CNN viewer, you know that in the course of the current blizzard, CNN has been airing pretty detailed reports of conditions in NY, DC, and other places hit by the storm. Now don't get me wrong, I think it's good for all of CNN's viewers to be aware that there is a blizzard going on through out the majority of the central East Coast and neighboring states. But is it really necessary or appropriate for a global news network to provide the level of detail they have been?
I mean really, I really don't tune into a global news channel to find out about the road conditions in NY. NY has plenty of local news stations that can provide that information. I know enough about snowfall in general to understand basically that roads are impassable or nearly so, that trees or large branches may come down and knock out power, and so on...Do I need CNN or MSNBC or Fox News or any other global news organization to also provide local news? No. Do those types of news channels need to cover and show the entirely of a governor's press conference to detail what power and road crews are doing to keep things as best they can? No. Just because a governor has something to say, does not mean everyone in the world needs to hear it.
As the situation is developing and on going, sure, tell me the federal government is closed. Sure, tell us all that the NY Stock Exchange is not operating due to the weather. Yes, please do inform us of other national or global impact things we need to know about. When it's over, it'd be good for them to share how much snow fell and that the authorities in the various locales have gotten things back to normal, so to speak. But "film every hour, at the top of the hour, and during most of every hour" of just how much snow is covering the streets and whatnot is just making too much of things. There are surely plenty of things going on elsewhere in the world, news, that are far more worth telling us about.
News channels place the same over emphasis on other weather events, like hurricanes and tornadoes. Of course, if the Yellowstone volcano erupts, that's going to be a national level geological/weather event.
Weather isn't he only example of the news industry over covering things. For example, when some lone looney-toon kills someone in Mobile, AL, unless he's a member of a cell that's going to do the same elsewhere, I really don't need to know. That is, I don't need to find out about it by tuning into a supposedly global news network, unless, of course, there's truly just nothing else going on in the world. What are the odd of that?
I mean really, I really don't tune into a global news channel to find out about the road conditions in NY. NY has plenty of local news stations that can provide that information. I know enough about snowfall in general to understand basically that roads are impassable or nearly so, that trees or large branches may come down and knock out power, and so on...Do I need CNN or MSNBC or Fox News or any other global news organization to also provide local news? No. Do those types of news channels need to cover and show the entirely of a governor's press conference to detail what power and road crews are doing to keep things as best they can? No. Just because a governor has something to say, does not mean everyone in the world needs to hear it.
As the situation is developing and on going, sure, tell me the federal government is closed. Sure, tell us all that the NY Stock Exchange is not operating due to the weather. Yes, please do inform us of other national or global impact things we need to know about. When it's over, it'd be good for them to share how much snow fell and that the authorities in the various locales have gotten things back to normal, so to speak. But "film every hour, at the top of the hour, and during most of every hour" of just how much snow is covering the streets and whatnot is just making too much of things. There are surely plenty of things going on elsewhere in the world, news, that are far more worth telling us about.
News channels place the same over emphasis on other weather events, like hurricanes and tornadoes. Of course, if the Yellowstone volcano erupts, that's going to be a national level geological/weather event.
Weather isn't he only example of the news industry over covering things. For example, when some lone looney-toon kills someone in Mobile, AL, unless he's a member of a cell that's going to do the same elsewhere, I really don't need to know. That is, I don't need to find out about it by tuning into a supposedly global news network, unless, of course, there's truly just nothing else going on in the world. What are the odd of that?