botingtonpost.com/archives/2014/09/18/news-media-cant-write-a-story-without-putting-someone-in-peril/#commentsTue, 18 Sep 2012 12:27:50 +0000http://botingtonpost.com/?p=4231Continue reading →]]>I’m waiting for news reports to announce that yesterday’s earthquake in Virginia was so powerful that it destroyed an abandoned Walgreens in Appomattox, Virginia, on its way to a nearby Wal-Mart. This news will be the only way the media can prove that we’re all still in danger of being torn apart by a 9.1 magnitude temblor that will level our homes and send us into the streets fleeing for the hills.
That’s it. I have nothing else to add to this, so all of you who are getting tired of the constant media attention to the “earthquake situation” over in Virginia, I challenge you to look deep within your own souls, and think how your neighbors and family and friends who are living in quake-prone areas can possibly be so incredibly selfish to risk their lives. If you want more of this stuff, you must think of them as nothing more than leeches.
Since I don’t know what part of Virginia you live in, I’m going to be on the side of the leeches and give you an example.
Last night, I got a call from my best friend, who lives just a few miles from the quake’s epicenter. As I started to tell her about yesterday’s quake, she said, “You’re never going to guess where I am.”
“That’s not a riddle,” I replied, “Just tell me.”
And she did. She was at a conference in Charlottesville, which has a magnitude-5.8 quake of its own in the last few years. The conference center was damaged, but not as much as the two hotels directly across the street, which had to be demolished.
“I’ve been to a lot of these conferences, but this is the only one I’ve been to where it just felt like the building was going to fall down when the shaking started,” she told me.
You’d think the earthquake coverage would be as exciting for leeches as it was for the people I have named in this piece. It would be if not for the fact that no matter how many times we get the message, some people just can’t get the message.
So, like everyone else in the world, while it was happening, my best friend got on her Facebook and Twitter accounts to share the news, and talk about how scary it was. My friend LJ, who has lived in Virginia and worked for years in Washington DC, said he still can’t shake that quake, and will never forgive that the earthquake was in such a populated area.
He also said the first thing he will do if it ever hits an area that will really shake his house to the ground is find a way to get out of his home. But he’s realistic, and knows that there’s no place he can go. So he’s just preparing to be the best survivor that he can be, and not put himself in harm’s way.
It was so easy for my friend, with her high ground, to feel in danger when she actually wasn’t, but no one has yet shown me the video of the earthquake. If there was no video of the quake, it means they didn’t film it with their phones and didn’t bother to upload it.
This is where you all have failed, to me. A single media outlet has been the only one we have heard who hasn’t filmed anything. Please don’t put a word into my mouth: I don’t know that they didn’t do it.
Here’s my advice to you: The earthquake in Virginia didn’t affect me in the least, and I live about 10 miles from its epicenter. There was nothing to see or hear on the news, nor was there any word from my friends about it.
I can only imagine how much that would have bothered my friends in the Southeast if it had occurred when they were in the path of the hurricane. I can just imagine they would not have even been this relaxed when the storm hit.
But what I am seeing over and over again is you leeches standing around discussing what a great time you’ve had in the past with people who lived through the earthquake when you are actually not living through the earthquake, and are just sharing the story because you can.
The media will never show you as saying, “Don’t let it happen again!” As long as you’re not in the path of the earthquake, please stop being upset about this media coverage of an earthquake that isn’t affecting you.
Since I’m not in Virginia, and haven’t been since I was 15, I haven’t been keeping up with the coverage of the earthquake. However, I have been watching the endless coverage of the earthquake in Japan and its aftermath.
That was another moment when it felt like a media-induced earthquake was happening.
As I watched the coverage, I was reminded that Japan also had the misfortune of having natural disasters that did terrible things to many, many thousands of people, as well as a couple of nuclear disasters. It’s just been over two years since Japan had an earthquake that killed many people.
As I watched the reports of the aftermath of that disaster unfold, I became depressed. I watched people who lost everything because of the natural disasters, and have been making do with the loss of their homes.
I felt horrible for them, but also couldn’t help but think, “You think that you are experiencing the worst situation, but you’ve got it so much easier than millions of others around the world. If they want to cry about earthquakes, they should be crying about what you have, instead.”
The media would have you believe that if you live on one of the coasts that you’re going to die any second.
I don’t think anyone is truly interested in bringing you up to speed with what’s happening in a country you haven’t ever visited, or don’t want to visit, just to see you cry about it.
On the other hand, if you don’t have an earthquake in your area and only hear about the ones where it’s not affecting you, I’m going to ask you to share them with me, just like we all share stories about what happened to us during a quake.
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https://botingtonpost.com/archives/2014/09/17/fishing-for-an-attention-worthy-earthquake/#respondSun, 17 Sep 2012 12:54:25 +0000http://botingtonpost.com/?p=4217Continue reading →]]>A few days ago, you may have seen reports that an earthquake had struck in Virginia, but you don’t know what they were talking about, because it’s not in Virginia, or America, for that matter.
The earthquake that I heard about was an undersea one in the Pacific Ocean that shook Japan. It came after a day when news outlets were trying to get viewers to freak out over another earthquake that happened in Virginia.
I live right next to Virginia. When the Virginia earthquake shook, it wasn’t so much a shake as a shaker. When this Japanese earthquake happened, however, it felt more like a little rattle, a little shake, and only a few people in my city felt it.
The Virginia earthquake was nothing like what happened on the news the other day. It didn’t cause the buildings in front of my house to shake and rattle, and no one felt it when it happened.
Instead, it felt like a little quake that did a little shaking. I felt vibrations and heard rolling sounds when the quake happened, but the ground itself didn’t shake. The earth in front of my home moved a little bit, but not enough for anyone to do anything about it.
To get back to the point of this piece: I feel like the earthquake media is intentionally using every quake that happens around the world to push its agenda.
And the
