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KeithE4 said:
I was watching the Seattle stations online starting at about 11:20 PM ET/8:20 PM PT. Plenty of daylight and plenty of live video, both on the ground and from the air.
So why wasn't any of that coverage interrupting the taped replays of earlier programming on the cable "news" networks?
The answer has to be something more complex than just the tired trope of "the networks don't care about anything outside DC/New York." If it were as simple as that, then the news coverage all this week wouldn't have been dominated by the Moore tornado, complete with extended evening newscasts and extra prime-time network hours on Monday.
Scott Fybush said:
As I've been saying, the time of day factor I'm sure is a big issue. Coupled with the seriousness of the story.
I was taught that the factors to consider when making these decisions are: People, Facilities, Time, and Money. How much staffing do you have available at the time, what facilities are available, how much will it cost, and what's the impact. Quite often, these channels get criticized for going live and getting a story wrong. Sometimes, it's better to wait, get the complete story, and get it right.
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FredLeonard
Guest
Curiously enough, the CBC has been giving this bridge collapse very prominent coverage this morning.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2387378634/
I don't watch or listen to the US networks. I grew up on the border and learned early on you get a more honest account on a lot of issues from the CBC. And often they cover stories the US media ignore.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/ID/2387378634/
I don't watch or listen to the US networks. I grew up on the border and learned early on you get a more honest account on a lot of issues from the CBC. And often they cover stories the US media ignore.
I've criticized the cable news networks for a lot of things, but I can't see criticizing them for this. The bridge story is important, but it's not a disaster on the magnitude of the Oklahoma disaster or Hurricane Sandy. It's great that nobody died in the bridge collapse, and I hate to say it - but that's some indication that it's not of the Oklahoma/Sandy magnitude.
CNN is probably America's go-to network for breaking news - their ratings go up when a huge story breaks - but like every other network - CNN has to economize, so they go with interivew or pundit shows at night, or repeat Anderson Cooper. AFAIK - MSNBC and Fox News are basically all pundit shows at night. These shows get higher ratings when the news is slow, and they're cheaper to produce.
CNN is probably America's go-to network for breaking news - their ratings go up when a huge story breaks - but like every other network - CNN has to economize, so they go with interivew or pundit shows at night, or repeat Anderson Cooper. AFAIK - MSNBC and Fox News are basically all pundit shows at night. These shows get higher ratings when the news is slow, and they're cheaper to produce.
BigA: By the first three of those standards, this one should have been a no-brainer. Each of the three cable channels has at least one anchor and a control room hot 24/7 for breaking news (though CNN now farms that duty out to CNN International after midnight ET). Each of the three has satellite transponder space available (and already paid for) for uplinking breaking news, 24/7. CNN could have cherrypicked from any of the big three Seattle stations' ongoing live coverage and MSNBC could have picked up KING-TV. It appears Seattle's Fox affiliate, KCPQ, was late to the live coverage last night, which might have impeded FNC's ability to pick up its coverage had it chosen to do so.
That fourth standard, "impact," is a little fuzzier. In the light of the next day, the story doesn't seem to have too much big national impact - nobody died and the cause appears to have been a wayward truck rather than a massive structural failure. But when the headlines hit last night, I think a good national news editor should have erred on the side of too much, rather than too little, coverage. I-5 is a massive border-to-border route, after all, and Vancouver to Seattle is a fairly heavily-trafficked corridor in particular.
FredLeonard: What's "curious" about the CBC covering it heavily? Vancouver is one of the largest cities in Canada, and I-5 is the major connecting highway that carries commerce southward from Vancouver to the entire U.S. west coast. The disruption of I-5 traffic is a major issue for Vancouver, and thus for much of western Canada.
That fourth standard, "impact," is a little fuzzier. In the light of the next day, the story doesn't seem to have too much big national impact - nobody died and the cause appears to have been a wayward truck rather than a massive structural failure. But when the headlines hit last night, I think a good national news editor should have erred on the side of too much, rather than too little, coverage. I-5 is a massive border-to-border route, after all, and Vancouver to Seattle is a fairly heavily-trafficked corridor in particular.
FredLeonard: What's "curious" about the CBC covering it heavily? Vancouver is one of the largest cities in Canada, and I-5 is the major connecting highway that carries commerce southward from Vancouver to the entire U.S. west coast. The disruption of I-5 traffic is a major issue for Vancouver, and thus for much of western Canada.
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FredLeonard
Guest
Scott Fybush said:
Curious that the CBC is covering it heavily in contrast to the US networks (the context of this thread). The same factors you mention should make it a big story "south of the border," too.
FredLeonard said:
It's actually potentially a much bigger story for Canada, at least for western Canada, than it is for most of the US. So much of British Columbia's commerce is directed southward at the U.S. west coast, and if it travels by truck, it travels down I-5.
The overall effect on U.S. commerce and travel, even within the fairly sizable Seattle market, is considerably smaller by comparison.
As for the Thursday night coverage, if Anderson Cooper did cover it on CNN, it wasn't happening when I turned it on around 8:30 PT/11:30 ET. CNN, FNC and MSNBC were all in taped replays of prime time at that point. I don't doubt that they eventually got to the story in live news inserts, but by then I'd gone to streams from the Seattle local newsrooms and didn't bother going back.
I too was surprised at the scant coverage of the bridge collapse, and I wonder if the reason is fatigue. Since the Boston Marathon bombings, news networks have been putting the wood to a lot of news pitches, including the IRS scandal, Bengazhi, and the DOJ's snooping into AP & FOX News and all the resulting congressional hearings. Then we had the Oklahoma tornadoes (2-consecutive days of destuctive and deadly storms).
The Seattle story is indeed credible national news, if only for the dynamic of human drama. I'm speculating that cars driving into the river beneath a collapsed bridge would have stirred instant, wall-to-wall coverage, were the networks not so thinned out with the stories listed above. These seem like unusually busy times for the news business.
The Seattle story is indeed credible national news, if only for the dynamic of human drama. I'm speculating that cars driving into the river beneath a collapsed bridge would have stirred instant, wall-to-wall coverage, were the networks not so thinned out with the stories listed above. These seem like unusually busy times for the news business.
Seceral factors played in to the coverage of this story:
1. lack of video. It was several hours before I saw anything other than still pictures. That just makes it hard for most networks to do much with it.
2. Lack of deaths. It was clear early on no one died and I think that always reduces the importance of a story like this.
3. This was the result of a truck hitting the bridge, not a random surprise collapse like the I-35 collapse of a few years ago. The "it could happen to you" aspect was gone.
4. it was on the west coast. The farther away you are from the NYC/DC axis, the less the networks care. It's "flyover country" to them.
1. lack of video. It was several hours before I saw anything other than still pictures. That just makes it hard for most networks to do much with it.
2. Lack of deaths. It was clear early on no one died and I think that always reduces the importance of a story like this.
3. This was the result of a truck hitting the bridge, not a random surprise collapse like the I-35 collapse of a few years ago. The "it could happen to you" aspect was gone.
4. it was on the west coast. The farther away you are from the NYC/DC axis, the less the networks care. It's "flyover country" to them.
tested said:
As several posters have noted, this is simply not true. By 8:20 PM PT, barely an hour after the bridge collapsed, all of the big three Seattle TV stations were into nonstop coverage with plenty of live video, both aerial and on the ground. If it was available locally, it was surely being uplinked and made available to the networks.
Agreed, and this we knew fairly early on. I went to bed about midnight ET (9 PM PT) and by then it was clear the death toll would be minimal, if not zero.
Also agreed - but I don't think we knew this until early morning, did we?
So we keep hearing...and yet nearly half of tonight's NBC Nightly was Oklahoma tornado follow-up, much of it promoting even more Oklahoma coverage later tonight on Rock Center. Oh, and the lead story was the bridge collapse. I didn't see what the other networks did, but I'd be very surprised if Skagit wasn't at or near the top of their shows, too.
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FredLeonard
Guest
All Things Considered did not do a story on the collapse. Not for the live feed and nothing added for West Coast feeds.
Anyone know what the terrestrial networks did on their west coast evening news feeds?
Anyone know what the terrestrial networks did on their west coast evening news feeds?
FredLeonard said:
Oh really?
They didn't do one last night because the last rollover of ATC is at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT, two hours before the bridge collapsed.
But here's what was segment B2 of tonight's ATC on all feeds:
Another Martin Kaste story was segment D2 on Morning Edition this morning, all feeds.
A quick check of the newscast rundowns shows that a Kaste piece first aired on the hourly at 12:01 AM ET, the bridge story led the hourly every hour overnight through 4:01 AM ET, and the story has remained in play on just about every hourly newscast since then all day long.
You were saying?
TheBigA said:
Sorry BigA, sticking to my guns-- cars flying airborne off a collapsed bridge would have scored national coverage, even though, thankfully, no fatalities. I'm certain the fog of saturation in Boston and DC caused this story to fall on the back-burners.
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Rube Dali the DodoHorse
Guest
So, you're telling me that great cities like LA, Chicago, SF, Dallas, Miami, and even Boston are considered "flyover country" by your standards. Am I sure that you're not Colin Cowherd in disguise you so-called "ELITIST"?tested said:
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