All Shook Up
by Jim Washburn
For years I've been reading accounts of rural communities in the US that, due to media conglomeration, have been left stranded without local news outlets. There could be floods, tornadoes or lizards headed their way, and there's no local news crew to tell them about it, just business as usual fed from the corporate hub.
Add Southern California to that list of rural communities. At 8:38 last night, a moderate earthquake jolted the Southland. It wasn't much in magnitude, but it was impressive nonetheless, sounding and feeling in many communities like a series of sharp explosions.
So, you head out the door, and as soon as you think you might be a little bit safe, you head for the TV. Where every network was carrying on with its sitcoms, entertainment news and such. "Did a Chinese satellite just hit our roof?" the wife and I wondered, since there was certainly no sense of a shared event coming from our local media. Only on KCAL Channel 9, when they were done with commercials, did we find any coverage: not much info, just a graphic of a Richter chart getting the scribbles and newscasters talking about almost diving under their desks.
Then we remembered AM radio still exists, and checked it out: The two news stations were on the job, but otherwise, it was just the programmed Christian talk and Mexican tubas.
Back to the TV: Most had no word on the earthquake whatever until it was convenient for them; when their news slots rolled around at 10 or 11 that we got to see reporters standing around the one piece of broken glass they could find.
It's like the old adage: Had this been an actual emergency, you would have been instructed to kiss your ass goodbye.
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