Thursday, February 3, 2011

I'm back!

I guess I'm back, rambling on about useless things as usual.

This time, I'm here to complain about the media, and most notably, the coverage of the recent natural catastrophes that have happened in my state, in which no area was spared.

Now, I get bat shit scared at even the hint that there may be a storm around, even if it only lasts about 15min (which here in storm season, they usually do). I freaked the fuck out when I heard about the flooding which inundated the lower half of my street. So, as a test, when I first saw cyclone Yasi forming out in the Pacific ocean, I decided that I would not watch or read any news item about the cyclone until it had crossed the shore (it's still a cyclone now I think).

So, I did. For 4 pain staking days I did not click on my favorite site, Google news. And you know what? I read the news this evening for the first time. It was a hell of a storm. One of the biggest in our history, considering it's gone further inland than any other has. But no one died. I was not affected. I had no reason to panic. I heard people in the local super markets telling their fellow paranoid friends about how they were doing the usual cyclone things like taping their windows and such, simply because it was not EXPECTED that it would hit Brisbane. It was as though that one degree of fear pushed by the media was enough to tip the reasonably minded people of Brisbane, who had just been through a historic flood, over the edge into panic.

Another thing I noticed, browsing the local news sources for the flood of news about Cyclone Yasi, was the same sources and the same information being repeated over and over again, not just by different news outlets, but in each of the separate stories in each different news outlet. Constantly telling me to keep tuned for more information, recycling the old stuff to make it seem new... It was maddening.

But enough of that. I am glad they are getting some media coverage, because without it, we would not care enough to help. I guess that if we cause enough panic and grief, everyone will fork out great sums of money to read a news paper that tells them where to donate.

9 comments:

  1. news shows are often repetitive, don' worry too much about it

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  2. Sounds very much like daytime television to me!

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  3. Queenslands had a pretty tough time lately, glad to see Brisbane wasn't effected by Yasi.

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  4. in my opinion the media just inflates the problem.
    Glad no one was killed.

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  5. damn, floods and now cyclone. you guys are taking it hard!

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  6. Yeh man, i know how you feel. Check out my blogs about the hurricane and the floods.

    Hope everything is ok.

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  7. wow you were gone for a long time! good to see you bloggin again!

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