The residents of the Texas Panhandle (unlike people in other parts of Texas) understand how difficult it can being in a blizzard can be. We experience them intermittently ourselves. So I empathize with the residents of the nation's East Coast, who are experiencing a particularly bad blizzard. I hope all of you East Coast residents can stay safe, and are inconvenienced as little as possible. You are in my thoughts.
Doesn't it seem strange though (and very convenient) that when cable news networks cover an event like this (and like the shootings in Charleston, Paris, and San Bernardino), no newsworthy event ever happens in the rest of the world? How does this happen? Do the cable news networks send out a "bat signal" to the rest of the world, asking them to cease all activities that could be deemed newsworthy?
Of course, I am joking. But it does seem to me that the cable networks could do a better job of covering these events without ignoring the rest of the world's news. Am I being unreasonable? I'd love to know what you readers think.
Reporting in from Snowpocalypse North. (We missed the all-time record in central park by .1 inch, and probably set one out here in Brooklyn,) I can't comment on how the cable news handled it -- I rarely watch them and for interviews, not first-level news -- but they would always be my third choice, after local news and the Weather Channel.
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I do appreciate the 'over-coverage' because I remember weather coverage in the days pre-satellite, pre-computer, and with only primitive radar at best. Not only was it less accurate, people paid it less attention -- with massive fatalities the result at times. Now people believe they know more about what they are talking about and pay attention. This time we had a week of knowing we could get whacked, and people made sure they shopped and were well stocked, when they could be, and mostly stayed home and didn't ignore the warnings. There were some pile-ups, some loss of life, but in the good old days the numbers would have come with an extra zero or two. (And yes, the fact it hit on a Saturday helped, too.)