There they go again

So I'm flipping around watching some of the coverage of that steam pipe explosion in midtown, and, as usual, the anchors and reporters on the national news channels are acting like idiots.

Wolf Blitzer on CNN and David Shuster on MSNBC are breathlessly "reporting" what's going on, mentioning terrorism every chance they can, talking about asbestos in the air, blocks shut down, trying desperately to get some of the eyewitness callers on the phone to talk about panic. None of them were panicked.

And there's good old Chuck Scarborough on WNBC, ch. 4, calmly and matter-of-factly reporting it, talking more about the subway delays and how well cops and firefighters responded to Con Ed's little headache.

Why do the national channels have to be so dramatic? Now whenever I see a report on one of the news networks about something happening anywhere else in the country, I always take it with a big grain of salt, considering how they are when they're talking about something I know.