Terror alert on your local TV news

[Newsjock]

How's it playing on your local purveyors of panic? Here's some of the 6pm news on KIRO Seattle as it aired just now (I taped it just to preserve how awful I knew it would be):

(cue music) Sally: The terror alert rises from yellow to orange, sending federal, state, and local police agencies scrambling to keep up with the newest threat. Intelligence officers are now warning terror strikes on the U.S. are possible during the holidays.

Wayne: And those attacks could rival the horror of 9/11. We begin our in-depth coverage tonight with KIRO-7 Eyewitness News reporter Alison Grande. She's live in Seattle with that this alert means to you.

Alison: Wayne, Seattle police here, they knew about the threat level jumping even before it was announced.

... Wayne: It's important to note that, despite the heightened alert across the country, there have been no specific threats against Seattle. But we're certainly not immune to the attention of terrorists. Back in 2002, a laptop was found in a cave in Afghanistan with pictures of Northwest landmarks, like the Space Needle, the Hanford nuclear reservation, and Boeing.

(This went on for nearly 7 full minutes. Then a brief story about Cheney's visit to Seattle. And then this, right near the top of the news ...)

... Wayne: Now, the son of our former vice president, Al Gore, was arrested this weekend on drug possession charges ...


* * *
Absolutely disgusting. Profanity isn't strong enough to describe the utter, absolute anger I'm having today at our whoremedia, of which I'm a part.

When your local media pulls crap like this, call them on it, and call them hard.

[gristy]

1. Nothing about the dollar, right?

But I have to tell ya, the media's inattention to important stories is only a symptom of what is their bottom line: $$. We see the kind of show and stories that gets their ratings up. That's it. No other factor has such an influence. No longer do the local stations, their owners, or the networks see the news as a public service. They have to get the viewers - and they don't care which ones. All about numbers, man.

This is where free markets are killing us. Some simple yet creative legislation could solve this problem very quickly. But it would also reduce the market "value" of the media, so I have no illusion that it is ever going to happen. Maybe if a dem got in. Maybe... But we'd need a Democratic congress too.

[DODI]

2. I am afraid Rowland isn't going to protect us.

70% want him to resign -- I think his way of protecting Millstone will be to paint a big red target on it!

[Gogi]

3. They interrupted the postgame show on Fox news in St. Louis

with a graphic showing the orange alert and said "the terror alert has been raised to orange" like everybody panic. Then they showed Tom Ridge saying the same thing. Then it was back to football! It lasted about three/four minutes. Got to get those commercials in. I said "Big woop" and went back to making up my Lee Atwater Invitational Celebrity Dead Pool entry.

[judyt]

4. On Fox News Terror alerts are opportunity for more clouding the facts.

This morning Fox had a "terror analyst" who continued to connect Saddam with 9/11. Our concerns about another terror attack continue even though we have captured Saddam, this "analyst" pronounced. Fox keeps the falsehood alive against all facts that Saddam had NOTHING to do with 9/11.