media overkill

I am not sure when media overkill began. The first time I really recall it was from 9-11, although in that case at least it was more justified. And after that it has been in full effect with the major cable new stations. Spending hours at a time on car fires in some remote place in the US, or 24/7 coverage on major news story. However, even though it is a major news story does that really justifies all the time spent devoted to one particular subject. What is a major news story in one area of the country---can be just a news story to the rest of it.

So, the bridge collapse in Minnesota is another example of this. A bridge collapsing out of nowhere in the midst of rush-hour traffic is horrific. Whether it is over another road or a body of water, everyone in the country travels over a bridge at some point. And while it shouldn't matter if 3 people died or 30 people died---when it comes to the significance of a big news story, it sort of does matter.

I think our photo editor working on this section did a great job. (I was doing sports this night---see late night sports post). I thought our paper looked amazing. We had nice informative pictures that ran large--the design was clean and simple and each picture gave you more insight into the tragedy. However, my question doesn't have to do with the editing of the pictures----it has to do with the coverage. Is it really necessary to have a front page CP and 2 inside pages on a story that is most significant to people 2000 miles away? Is this the newspaper equivalent to having the same as cable news’ 24/7 non-stop coverage? And where is the point that we go too far and our local readers suffer?

Another bit of information I learned was to be very wary of reporting the numbers of deaths in headlines. Most papers printed 7 total the first night – (we printed 9, not sure where that number came from) and when I woke up the next morning, it had decreased to 4. ---Granted, with all the craziness of the situation –all the facts might not be getting out of the area. I think it is just important to remember to have conversations about displaying big numbers like that and how certain you are that they are correct.