Home Pop Culture Hurricane Irene: Did the media go overboard?

Hurricane Irene: Did the media go overboard?

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Image source;dailymail.co.uk. What do you think is this headline pushing it a little too far?
Image source;dailymail.co.uk. What do you think is this headline pushing it a little too far?

Like most New Yorkers, I’ve been wrapped listening and reading play by play how Hurricane Irene has been playing out since it arrived our way this weekend. From the web, TV, radio it all pretty amounts to the same thing- a drenching over pour of media hyperbole. To be frank there’s probably been more drenching and air blowing coming out of the press than there has been out of the actual sky. Which I guess is a good thing. But then again if you think about it – it’s also a pretty bad thing too.

Physically, from the way I see it the whole thing, the storm has been fairly tame (I’m not kidding when I tell you I slept with my windows wide open last night as some supposed zeitgest was suppose to roll down the street) and I can honestly say I have experienced more damning weather in all my years in NYC that one has ever bothered to read about. Which in a roundabout way is telling us how saturated, ridiculous and out of hand most current media commentary has become.

Then again anyone who spends half a minute reading between the lines probably already figured out that the press has become a fanatical zealous  diatribe aimed squarely at sensationalizing and rocking us into deep slumbers with the occasional rhetoric about who or what we should vote for or which celebrity, politician got caught this time with an underage love thing or whatever sells page views. (yes, as a media player myself I am as equally guilty, but at least I try for what it helps to have a conscience about it- blah!)

That said I couldn’t resist pulling out the following comment I came across on usatoday, I think it pretty much sums up the ridiculousness of it all.

Thank god not all readers haven’t been completely stupefied yet…

0953ae9ce305cd0f

9:04 AM on August 28, 2011

This comment is hidden because you have chosen to ignore 0953ae9ce305cd0f. Show DetailsHide Details

the hurricane isn’t targetting new york and it’s not engaged in a deliberate march up the coast.

it’s a hurricane.

it doesn’t have an agenda.

talk about a persecution complex.

ten years of obsession with the war on terror and the subsequent erosion of journalistic skills and apparently brain cells is what results in cretinous headlines and articles like this.

it’s deeply, deeply pathetic.


whoever wrote this article should be ashamed of themselves and certainly isn’t a real journalist.

i hope everyone in the path of the hurricane stays safe.

Hurricane Irene. The sudden sex celebrity without much bang.

Who would of thought in moments of hysteria watermelons mattered so much?

Did you notice a shark swimming down the freeway? Welcome to Hurricane Irene…

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