As "tuned out" as our generation may be there was a major national event last week that nobody could ignore, the California wildfires. The "California Burning" captivated audiences last week and topped out as the second-biggest news story of 2007.
Mark Jurkowitz of PEJ wrote an article posted on Journalism.org which tells of all the news coverage the California wildfires received last week and the different ways in which the story was told. Journalists capitalized on the heroic part of the story with the exhausted firefighters working days on end. Journalists also tapped into the human interest stories of loss and survival, which was topped off with the scene of San Diego TV reporter Larry Himmel reporting from the scene of his own home of 25 years which now is reduced to a burning pile of rubble.
"This was what is left of my home," Himmel said. "This was our garage; the living room was over there, there was a porch right there, and the bedrooms. This was a living hell. This is what I came home to today."
The "California burning" accounted for 38% of the newshole last week coming in second to the April 16 Virgina Tech massacre that took the lives of 33 students and faculty, which accounted for 51% coverage in a single week.
The wildfires were the top of every media outlet with newspapers (19%), online (33%), and radio(35%). The coverage was extremely heavy with more than 50% airtime, with network TV(53%) and cable TV (51%).
Jurkowitz suggest that what separated the story and gave it public interest "was the question of government preparedness and the specter of another public sector failure comparable to what happened after Katrina rolled through New Orleans. Much of the coverage emphasized the administration's determination to avoid just such a comparison."
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I usually enjoy listening to the news and keeping on top of what is going on. This week however, when 38% of the news being broadcasted was about the California wildfires I was not as tuned in as I usually am. Why? Not as interested. Don't get me wrong- I am aware of the tragedy of what happened out there and am remembering all those affected, but the news has this amazing way of twisting things and changing stories to fit their agendas. I got so sick of hearing reporters compare the wildfires to Katrina. There were three similarities between these things: 1) They were both natural disasters, 2) Both disasters affected a number of people, and 3) people happened to stay in sports domes in both incidents. The media went crazy with these, straying very far from what was actually happening. They were more focused on who was to blame for these things. Natural disasters are things that occur beyound our control. I do not know that we can blame any one person for something that only nature can control. If the media were to stay an unbiased reporter I may be more interetsed and stay tuned in.
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