Monday, March 12, I turned on Fox Vews at 4 p.m. The tv screen was filled with a very strong fire. The news reader was talking excitedly about this blast.
He said a gas or oil pipeline (he wasn’t sure which) had burst in Texas.
For the next 15 minutes this event went from being possibly a terrorist action, a fire that would affect the stock market in a disastrous way (causing a possible depression, recession, suicides), something that could be alien retribution, Katrina comparisons and a possible nuclear attack from a consortium of North Korea, Iran and al Qaida.
The announcer’s excited words, ‘We have no account of the exact number of people that may have been injured in this explosion or are missing.?
I could visualize the program’s producers off-camera feverishly dialing, e-mailing, Googling and sending smoke signals to Texas Indians or anyone who would, please, talk to our news reader.
Finally, a good ol? boy sheriff’s voice was heard. Casually, he said, ‘No, there wasn’t really much more to it than a routine pipeline bustin?. No there weren’t nobody within a couple miles of it. We’re just going to let ‘er burn out, just like we did with all the others. Thanks for callin?. Have a nice day.?
I swear the audio sound chip picked up the announcer’s deflation.
This 15 minutes of suspense was over in 15 minutes. Now then, the Tara Grant case kept the suspense going for four weeks.
TV announcers reached back into their ‘excited talk? memory bank to bring us ‘breaking news? 24/7. Nonstop vibrating uvulars.
Excitement continued to build when word got out (was released) that a foreign born au pair had exited the country.
At least fourteen Detroit television stations sent people who look good on camera to Germany so local viewers could get ‘news you’ll see only on Ch. 17,? and ‘Our Ch. 18 cameras were first on the scene. Stay tuned to this channel for the latest breaking news.?
Every report was ‘exclusive? which preceded every breath.
We had a confession, a crying, pleading husband, missing body parts, court rejection, then approval, of home and factory searches, and then aerial shots of a man in an SUV coming from Petoskey to Macomb County for 17-and-a-half hours.
Finally, the uvulas got a rest, and the announcers could get back to calmly telling us of the routine news: drive-by shootings, deadly fires, car and bus crashes, bank robberies and baby stealings.
However, however, these two cited ‘breaking news? stories had to share air and screen time with the death of a beauty queen.
Heavens to Betsy, how much can we take? No wonder people drink, smoke, curse and pray.
This bosomy beauty, who is reported to have had all the talent of a toad, died of unknown causes, there were DNA demands, child custody fights, legal maneuvering, a crying judge and a foreign country involved.
More people claimed to have fathered the 39-year-old’s child than fought in the Union vs Rebs conflict in the 1860s. One of the would-bes claimed to have been at Gettysburg.
Give a tv station some cleavage and there is no end to the coverage (lack of coverage?) a station can bring us.
And, in this case our exposure wasn’t just locally. Those network geniuses, Hollywood types, and the ‘we-know-what-our-viewers-want-to-see? programmers saw to it that we saw to it (’em?).
What the tv stations don’t seem to be concerned about is viewers? complacency and overkill.
I think I can smell it coming.