The Tsunami Media Effect: Who’s To Blame?

by Drew Grant | 10:44 am, February 28th, 2010

» 9 comments

Yesterday, every network and news outlet waited with bated breath while a giant wall of water was supposed to come rushing towards Hawaii’s coast like a scene out of Deep Impact. Luckily it was a Saturday, or no one would have gotten any work done, glued to their TV sets as they were. But the tidal wave, caused by Friday night’s Chilean earthquake, never came…and while we can’t say we’re disappointed that a state wasn’t decimated, we are wondering: who got it wrong? We came up with two conclusions:

• The Forecasters: Look, predicting the weather is as much of an art as science. And when the water never showed after a whole day of waiting, we were told that Hawaii had “dodged” a bullet. Yet oceanographers were saying moments before the tide pulling back to reveal the shelf, and the discoloration of the water proved that there was about to be a natural disaster. And while all signs pointed to go, we wonder if shouting “fire” in a state under emergency really helped anybody. Gerard Frye at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center gave this explanation: “There are all sorts of assumptions that we make in trying to figure out how big the waves are going to be, and if we can avoid some of those assumptions then maybe we could do a better job.” Still, better safe than sorry, right? Except then we get to the television firestorm…

• The Media: There is nothing networks love more than a good national crisis. Not to be cynical, but it’s great for ratings, it’s great for bringing the experts on, and it’s great for deploying teams of your anchors to the spot to get exclusive coverage. So can anyone blame the news? Well yes…sort of. This isn’t the first time networks have bought whole-handedly whatever citizen journalism they could get their hands on. Credible news sources based the majority of their coverage on eye-witness accounts, pictures uploaded via Twitter, and in some cases, UStream. While we understand that there may have not been enough time to get your reporters embedded (especially with their airports closed): this kind of reliance on non-journalists for information hearkens back to the trouble we had at the Fort Hood shootings.

Nor did it help to have people like Rich Sanchez on the air, going nutzo and having a temper-tantrum. Although when you think about it, he was kind of right about the vague application of science in this scenario.

Hawaii, Tsunami, tsunami earthquake media

ChrisNH

Everyone knows it was Rick Sanchez’ fault. He was the one with ‘bated breath’ trying to get SOMEONE to explain what ‘Nine meters’ meant in English. But the larger issue is this: Weather forecasters have at their disposal some of the cleverest technology imaginable. They have Doppler. They have modeling supercomputers. They have dueling satellites that never seem to agree (and why is that, anyway?). And, on TV at least, they use wizard-like ‘blue-screen’ technology, which makes your average weather person appear a whole lot ‘nuanced’ than they really are. These are ‘experts,’ after all.

But for all that technology, forecasts are actually getting worse. To the point where Mea Culpas rule the industry. It is a curious paradox that technology gets better while the forecasts themselves get worse.
JimW

Maybe I’m missing something, but Mediaite searches every nook and cranny of the Internet and cable TV for the slightest blip in the continuum and now they have to nerve to be stunned when a Tsunami, generated by one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history, is headed for Hawaii? Drew Grant! Stop thinking!
JimW

I meant that Mediaite is stunned when a Tsunami generated by one of largest earthquakes in recorded history garners media attention.
libra blue

I didn’t catch any of Rick’s coverage, but Fredricka Whitfield seemed disappointed when the Hawaiian vacationers she was interviewing said they weren’t really concerned and that they were being served cocktails at a nearby restaurant.
http://www.sailrabbits.com Magister

Citizen journalism, especially in a disaster or weather situation has been on the upswing for more than a decade and it has especially exploded in the past couple of years, since the technology has become more widespread.

I’d say the first was probably the local weatherman asking for folks to email pics of snowfall, then it graduated to flood damage and now, it’s pretty much every weather-related event and the submissions are in real-time.

Heck, a dozen years or so ago, I was in discussions with a cable network to license the feed from a couple of remote cameras for just such events and now (though I have nothing to do with this installation), if a hurricane is headed toward the Keys, pretty much anyone can pull up the “Sloppy Joe Cam” and broadcast the feed until the power goes out. And then, once the power goes down, as long as there’s internet or a cell connection, pics can continue for as long as people can peer out the window.

As for the “Ft. Hood” connection… as I commented at least twice yesterday, I was watching the local Hawaii stations, so I didn’t see any national coverage. I just skimmed back through the linked article and am I to assume that the cablers were taking “science” from citizen journalists or was it the same type stuff the local affiliates were showing — a few first-hand reports about an observable situation, a couple webcams and some Skype?
timzank

H mmmmmm, lets see, a handful of scientists suggests something weather related COULD happen. Media interprets that as Gospel and runs with it as fact which then turns out to be wrong.

Sounds a lot like the global warming hysteria and media love affair doesn’t it?

Morons.
J Baustian

Forget the tsunami, what about the initial earthquake coverage Friday night and early Saturday morning?

Fox News Channel was still running reruns of the O’Reilly Factor. MSNBC and CNN were doing earthquake coverage, and both were okay. But CNN had better maps and graphics, and since that was about all that could be shown then CNN was the initial winner.

It was pretty easy to find the live feed from Chilean TV — but they couldn’t do much either in the middle of the night. Mostly interviews with government officials, with the same shots of collapsed parking structures in the split screen. And nothing from Concepción, naturally.
ImNotBlue

libra blue says:
February 28, 2010 at 1:00 pm

I didn’t catch any of Rick’s coverage,

Apparently (according to ICN), Rick got really agitated and lost his cool with another CNN person for virtually no reason… and then “disappeared” off the coverage for the rest of the day.
libra blue

@ImNotBlue,

Thanks for the info. Sorry I missed it; I would have enjoyed that!