Jay Honeck
Touchdown! Greaser!
I own a motel on the Texas gulf coast, and would like to make a couple of observations about how the national media-types have been playing two recent events: the BP oil spill, and Hurricane Alex.
WRT to the oil spill, see this article, for reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100701/ts_csm/311973
Since the media first awakened to the magnitude of the spill, we have been battling the image that the entire Gulf of Mexico is awash in oil. The media continues to exacerbate this problem by playing on the fears of geographically-challenged Americans, many of whom couldn't find Louisiana on a map for a million bucks. Now, articles like this are claiming that people who swim in the gulf are getting sick!
I know most of you know this, but the Gulf of Mexico is an ENORMOUS body of water, and the oil is 500 miles away. Better yet, it's drifting AWAY from Texas. No one is getting sick here swimming in the gulf, unless they're trying to drink it. But that doesn't stop the headline writers from painting the entire gulf as some sort of disaster area.
Heck, even Doonesbury is constantly talking about the "flammable shrimp" from the gulf. It's insanely ignorant, and is causing people down here real harm -- because people read that strip and stop eating shrimp.
Now, Hurricane Alex.
It's funny -- at first I thought "My God, the weather people down here are just as bad as they were in Iowa" (where they are constantly warning people about "life-threatening wind-chills, and other such nonsense, as if people don't know it's cold outside?) -- but I quickly realized that they are THE SAME PEOPLE. CNN, FoxNews, The Weather Channel, they all make their money on advertising, and nothing sells like a good ol' "catastrophic event" -- whether it exists, or not. And the local TV stations all jump on the band-wagon, dollar signs in their eyes.
For days the forecasters were predicting that Alex -- barely a hurricane -- wasn't going to hit the United States. Nevertheless, endless stories showing people in Corpus Christi buying water and generators, and breathless Jim Cantori inexplicably standing outside in a driving rain storm managed to scare the bejeezus out of many geographically-challenged tourists. As a result, the Fourth of July weekend -- the biggest of the summer -- has been ruined up and down the Gulf coast -- even though Alex was nothing but a rain event, and the weather here is quite nice.
We've seen storms a thousand times worse in the Midwest, dozens of times -- heck, storms are a way of life in the tornado belt. (In fact, our other motel in Iowa has been HAMMERED by weather this summer.) We have even seen storms HERE that were far worse. With Alex we didn't hear a single crack of thunder -- not even a single bolt of lightning -- yet people were literally scared to come here. It's just goofy.
Again, I'm probably preaching to the choir here, and maybe this is a post-Katrina phenomenon, but people need to remember that when the media types are standing out in the wind and rain, telling everyone that they are going to DIE -- they are doing it for one reason, and one reason only: Advertising sales. Never let a good crisis go to waste -- real or not.
And, of course, there is real danger in over-hyping these sorts of things. Next time, when it may really BE a disaster, who will listen?
So, the sun is out, and it's VFR weather here today -- but the island is dead. Everyone made other plans, thanks to the over-hyped, over-blown media hoopla about two non-events.
The good news? Any of you folks who didn't make plans for the Fourth Weekend yet and want to enjoy a few days on Mustang Island, come on down! We've got plenty of rooms, and -- for a change -- you'll be able to easily get into all the bars and restaurants...
WRT to the oil spill, see this article, for reference: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100701/ts_csm/311973
Since the media first awakened to the magnitude of the spill, we have been battling the image that the entire Gulf of Mexico is awash in oil. The media continues to exacerbate this problem by playing on the fears of geographically-challenged Americans, many of whom couldn't find Louisiana on a map for a million bucks. Now, articles like this are claiming that people who swim in the gulf are getting sick!
I know most of you know this, but the Gulf of Mexico is an ENORMOUS body of water, and the oil is 500 miles away. Better yet, it's drifting AWAY from Texas. No one is getting sick here swimming in the gulf, unless they're trying to drink it. But that doesn't stop the headline writers from painting the entire gulf as some sort of disaster area.
Heck, even Doonesbury is constantly talking about the "flammable shrimp" from the gulf. It's insanely ignorant, and is causing people down here real harm -- because people read that strip and stop eating shrimp.
Now, Hurricane Alex.
It's funny -- at first I thought "My God, the weather people down here are just as bad as they were in Iowa" (where they are constantly warning people about "life-threatening wind-chills, and other such nonsense, as if people don't know it's cold outside?) -- but I quickly realized that they are THE SAME PEOPLE. CNN, FoxNews, The Weather Channel, they all make their money on advertising, and nothing sells like a good ol' "catastrophic event" -- whether it exists, or not. And the local TV stations all jump on the band-wagon, dollar signs in their eyes.
For days the forecasters were predicting that Alex -- barely a hurricane -- wasn't going to hit the United States. Nevertheless, endless stories showing people in Corpus Christi buying water and generators, and breathless Jim Cantori inexplicably standing outside in a driving rain storm managed to scare the bejeezus out of many geographically-challenged tourists. As a result, the Fourth of July weekend -- the biggest of the summer -- has been ruined up and down the Gulf coast -- even though Alex was nothing but a rain event, and the weather here is quite nice.
We've seen storms a thousand times worse in the Midwest, dozens of times -- heck, storms are a way of life in the tornado belt. (In fact, our other motel in Iowa has been HAMMERED by weather this summer.) We have even seen storms HERE that were far worse. With Alex we didn't hear a single crack of thunder -- not even a single bolt of lightning -- yet people were literally scared to come here. It's just goofy.
Again, I'm probably preaching to the choir here, and maybe this is a post-Katrina phenomenon, but people need to remember that when the media types are standing out in the wind and rain, telling everyone that they are going to DIE -- they are doing it for one reason, and one reason only: Advertising sales. Never let a good crisis go to waste -- real or not.
And, of course, there is real danger in over-hyping these sorts of things. Next time, when it may really BE a disaster, who will listen?
So, the sun is out, and it's VFR weather here today -- but the island is dead. Everyone made other plans, thanks to the over-hyped, over-blown media hoopla about two non-events.
The good news? Any of you folks who didn't make plans for the Fourth Weekend yet and want to enjoy a few days on Mustang Island, come on down! We've got plenty of rooms, and -- for a change -- you'll be able to easily get into all the bars and restaurants...
Gotta love CNN!
