Sunday, August 28, 2011

Overcovering Irene

Better safe than sorry. Yeah. Is it just me or was Hurricane Irene over hyped by the media?

Sure there was flooding and plenty of damage. The winds that hit the New York area were measured at 65 MPH. That's strong but, from media reports, we were told to expect much more. As the storm bounced off the middle Atlantic coast and reached cooler water temperatures, it was downgraded. Still, the media were rooting on for "THE BIG ONE." On Sunday morning, the cable news networks brought on the main news anchors to tell the story.  (The big boys seldom work on Sundays.)

Listening to the radio network news on Friday afternoon, it sounded like a science fiction movie or a little bit like Orson Wells' "War Of The Worlds."

The biggest amount of damage caused by this storm came to the media's credibility. There will be more hurricanes. Will we believe the warnings?