Monday, January 08, 2007

It's probably only Jersey anyway

For yet another example of how the cable "news" channels have become bottom-feeding, ratings-driven panicmeisters, just look at the reporting on that mysterious gas smell that apparently afflicted parts of midtown and lower Manhattan this morning. (Here on the fabulous Upper East Side, I smelled nothing).

I turned on the TV at about 1 pm to catch the headlines. At 1:04, the local 24-hour news channel, NY1, was already on to another story. But the three national channels, CNN, FOX and MSNBC, were still breathlessly reporting on this smell, including meaningless shots of random buildings and street scenes, maps showing the area, and reporters live in the "field."

So a station devoted exclusively to New York City news has already decided there's nothing there, but channels that supposedly serve a national audience are speculating about unlikely scenarios, with the T word thrown out for good measure, trying to scare the shit out of their audience.

Pathetic.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I smelled it this morning at work (Park and 32). I didnt think terrorists - I just figured the building was going to explode around me! Lovely way to start a Monday morning. It's gone now and they didn't even send us home - bastards!!

Anonymous said...

and you just had to get in a Jersey joke right! :)

Anonymous said...

At least they took a break from talking about missing blonde teenage girls or mountain climbers lost in the snow, you know real big national stories like that...

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