TV networks failing viewers

According to recent reports, twenty four people were killed on the USA mainland during the onslaught of hurricane Irma from Friday 9^th-10th September 2017. However if there was a way of testing it accurately, I would be prepared to bet that more people died from stress-related illnesses like heart attack and strokes, as a result of how the major television networks reported  the progress of that hurricane.

Because for almost a week before hurricane Irma was even due to descend on Florida, the major networks went of a feeding frenzy implying almost ad infinitum, that the annihilation of the state was eminent.  The unnecessary scare tactics and language used by the leaders in electronic media had a toll not only on Florida residents but also on their family members in other states and abroad.

Yes, it is true that Hurricane Irma with winds registering at times as much as 195 miles per hour,  was the largest and most dangerous to develop in the Atlantic and threaten the Caribbean region, but did the media need to start spreading panic about the “certain doom” Floridians faced, long before the path of the hurricane could be determined?

Yes they could have started informing and warning residents about the possibilities but did they need to compete so fiercely to see who could use the most inflammatory language to create irrational fear among their viewers? I don’t know if they realize it, but millions of Floridians have relatives in other states and all over the world from and as far back as Monday 4^th September, the type of sensational seeking reporting that prevailed, almost totally convinced viewers that their family would be wiped off the face of the earth, if they did not leave the state.

The sad part, was the fact that while the press was creating this false impression and paying attention to remote possibilities concerning  Florida, Irma was venting its anger thousands of miles away, on small vulnerable island like Barbuda, St. Martin, St. Thomas, St. Johns, British virgin islands,Turks and Caicos island, the very beleaguered Haiti, Bahamas, and Cuba, killing 36 people as it raged. However, initially, there was nary a word from the major US television networks about what was happing  in the tiny, vulnerable islands, far from the US mainland, before or while Irma struck them, only, almost grudgingly, after the fact, while they kept playing up the hype about Florida.

While ignoring the rest of the region too in their “international news” segments, they even displayed only passing interest to what was happening to people at their southern border, where a terrible 8.3 magnitude earthquake hit their most important neighbor, Mexico killing almost 100 people.

What “international/world news” can these networks be delivering?

Further those of us who have experienced many hurricanes and “real” weather forecasters know that most hurricanes do not normally follow predicted paths  until around 24 or 48 hours before they land, and Irma operated true to form.  So reporting designed to cause fear and panic, instead of information, is counter-productive. They could easily have been more effective, had they delivered adequate, timely information to the public, only adding the necessary urgency when the outcome was more certain, instead of deluging Floridians and other viewers for hours on end, up to a week before the hurricane was due to land on their shores.

Their fear mongering type of reporting, created unnecessary panic, even causing thousands of people to move north into areas where the hurricane eventually headed, putting the “refugees” more into harm’s way than if they had not over-sold the possible dangers long before they were apparent.

 Will the media have any credibility the next time a hurricane appears to be heading towards Florida? You tell me.

I don’t know if the performance of most of the journalists at the major television networks stemmed from the fact that many are too young to have experienced a hurricane,  their feeling of failure because people in Houston were not adequately warned about the possible dangers that Harvey posed or just from for hunger for ratings.

Whatever the reason, their performance this week as the purveyors of “international/world news” has done nothing to enhance the waning credibility of the US media. Nor in reality have they demonstrated that are they any different from their president, whose nationalist worldview and rhetoric about withdrawing from world affairs, many of those same journalists at the major networks correctly criticize.