You know what’s Crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
How much news coverage is being devoted to the floods.
As you crazy readers undoubtedly know by now; Nashville was crapped on by Poseidon himself. When cars are floating on the inerstate, and school buildings are floating down the highway like Noah’s Ark heading toward a rainbow, you know the water is high.
As you might expect, tv news went ballistic. Tragedies are what tv news is built for. Crying and anguish and unbelievable moments that don’t require tremendous thought. Televised pictures that tell the whole story without so much as a word. That is what breaking news is all about.
For the first few days local news went wall to wall. No commercials, no Wheel of Fortune. Take the 700 Club and shove it up your keester, lady. “we’re storm tracking over here.”
Frantic weather people and phoners and graphics and pictures sent in from viewers. It was skype and facebook and tears on top of despair. It was a round robin of wetness.
When the 24/7 stopped, the newscasts expanded. WKRN most notably added a noon show, and expanded the 10 o’clock news an extra half hour.
Stations did telethons and mini concerts that raised money for flood victims. Country music stars came out of the woodwork. Vince Gill and Keith Urban raised 1.7 Million dollars on the NBC affiliate just by strumming a six string.
Titan’s coach Jeff Fisher brought QB Vince Young and the boys to some flood ravaged areas and set them loose. The superstar athletes were floored by the extent fo the devestation.
Back to the TV coverage: While the tragedy has pretty much affected everyone and while the information being disseminated by the local news stations has been very helpful, it is also depressing and a daily reminder of how crazy your life is.
I have begun to hear people say when are you going to cover something other than the flooding?
When will you show me a drug related shooting again? When will you go live from the interstate because of a car fire?
I cannot answer these questions. It is a delicate balance. You want to be sympathetic to the victims but you also don’t want to ignore the wishes of the viewing audience.
When is enough enough?
When is the flood the first few stories of the newscast and then the anchor can finally say “and now in other news…”
Nashville is approaching this moment. It is going to happen. The question is when? I wonder if a natural time barrier like Friday will mark the transition. Maybe it will be the following Monday.
The problem is, so many people still live with a junk pile in their front yard, that it is impossible to dismiss.
The question is, if you have a junk pile in your front yard, do you want to turn on tv and see an hour of people with junk piles in their front yards?
Perhaps you want to see the police chase or the stupid criminals arrested for whatever.
It could be the escape you need to forget the junk pile in your front yard.
There is no easy answer for this. I can only believe that when one station transitions, and the ratings reflect acceptance, the other stations will quickly follow suit.
Remember after September 11th. The national media was wall to wall for 3 or 4 days. Then suddenly, like a beacon of laughter, David Letterman got on his show and just talked. Regis Philbin came on and let us know it was ok to laugh. It let us know that we could move on. We had survived. SNL quickly followed suit.
Nashville is huring right now, but I think in a week or so, it will be ok to report on news that is not all flood all the time.
Just one man’s opinion.
And that is crazy.