For those who do not know, I have a strong distaste for the local news. Particularly in Kansas City, the motto for news directors seems to be "If it bleeds, it leads". So my thinly disguised disgust was fully disclosed on February 28, 2007 when, at 9:00PM CST all four major networks (our house does not have cable/satellite) cut to the "dangerous" weather. I checked the KC Star this morning, and on a cursory glance, there were no deaths reported. In the cost of human lives, it apparently was not that dangerous after all. Why is there such an obsession with weather in the Kansas City area?
My guess is that there are two primary factors: our agricultural heritage and the rapid nature by which our severe weather strikes. As I flipped over to KCPT to watch a D-Day documentary, I realized that it was not mandatory to over-report the weather. KCPT had no metro weather map with counties colored for Tornado Watch, Tornado Warning, Flash Flood Warning, Groundhog Day Watch, etc. KCPT (public television) simply had text in the top left corner of the screen that said 'Tornado Warning' and every 10 minutes or so it would send a scroll across the bottom with more information. Honestly if you are still watching television with a tornado warning in your area you either
A) are not affected/are far or safe from the reported storm
or
B) are ignorant and deserve to die (this only includes those who know a tornado is in the area).
This is all a bit harsh, I know, but someone needs to get across to our local televsion stations, that some things are not to be tampered with... like Lost, which I was unable to see.
Do satellite dishes still "fail" to offer local programming? That would be a failure I could live with.
I couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteHere in Lawrence, they just overlaid the commercials, and the poor weatherman was constantly apologetic for that.
The weather info dancing all over the screen was still annoying.
(I can't wait until someone starts using those areas for advertising...)
Maybe the recent case preventing distribution of sanitized versions of films could be used to argue that the local stations should be required to use the least intrusive means of weather notification necessary.
This is another reason why I agree with everything in this post.
ReplyDeleteTelevision fails us in so many ways, let's hope all the emerging channels of distribution will liberate us.
You'll be interested in this.
ReplyDeleteApparently the other networks in KC didn't do so well with storm coverage for their viewers either.
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