One thing that really annoys me is that news stories, especially those covering disasters, don’t put in maps. But they WILL choose the most extreme photos or film footage to illustrate the story, which invariably makes the situation look much worse than it is. This is particularly annoying if the situation is already pretty dire. It’s galling when you’re trying to obtain useful information from the story, such as “Are the People I know Living the Flood/Fire/Tornado/Lava Flow region OK, or are they near the disaster?”
I first thought about this when I was moving to another city, which was at the time experiencing a flood. I wanted to know if the apartment I had rented (sight unseen) was anywhere near the flood. In those pre-internet days searching for this stuff wasn’t easy. TV news reports showed what looked like floods of biblical proportions, with no locations given. Al I knew was that SOMEWHERE in the city I was going to there were life-disrupting floods. I sought out copies of the local papers at libraries and the like, but they were no help – they didn’t have maps, either, and few details about the locations of the flooding in the stories that I could cross-reference with maps.
(Just so you know – I finally got there, and the apartment was fine. No flooding anywhere nearby. Whew!)
With the current news about Kilauea, I know from the news that there is lava flowing around somewhere o the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s going through a suburban development, threating homes and swallowing a car. it looks like a real-life version of Caltiki the Immortal Monster gulping down tourist homes, but the story is really light on context. If I knew someone there, I wouldn’t know if the lava was anywhere near them or not. I don’t know if the lava flow is big or small. All I know is that it generates awesome images on the TV news.
Fortunately, it’s easier today to find this info. Here’s the USGS site on the lava, complete with day-by-day maps:
Would it kill them to put one of these up alongside the disaster porn they have by way of reporting – you know, providing actual information rather than visceral thrills? Couldn’t a newspaper run one of these?
I see that the Greetings from Mt. Kilauea thread links to the Hawaii News Now site, which actually has a map – http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/38087728/new-kilauea-eruption-triggers-house-fires-as-hundreds-evacuate-area The bad news is, if you’re not already familiar with the area, that map is pretty useless. The USGS site is much better.
My local news is pretty good about showing maps when something happens. Instead of just saying, “there was a shooting at the intersection of 9th and Ridge,” they often show a map with nearby main streets labeled and an indicator of the location of the incident. However, these maps never seem to make it to the website when they put the story there.
But when I’m watching the news, it’s a great help.
So I wouldn’t say that no one’s doing it. National news providers might not be, but at least some local news providers do.
And yes, I find it very helpful and wish it was done more.
Not that it’d help my inlaws…
They know where we live - they’ve been here several times. But any time there’s any weather disaster anywhere north of North Carolina, we get a call. It’s especially amusing when there’s a blizzard in Boston and they want to make sure we’re OK. We’re 50-ish miles southeast of DC - yeah, we’re clear of New England.
A few years back, my daughter was on a cruise to the Bahamas and Key West. There was a tropical storm just off the northern coast of South America. We got a panicked call wanting to know if we could get in touch with our daughter. And do what?? Have her tell the captain about the storm that was over a thousand miles away?
I’m thinking geography isn’t my MIL’s strong suit.
Not exactly map-related, but I have had a weird experience when talking about news with my friends and co-workers.
I’ll bring up some odd news story, and as soon as I get into the opening sentence, for example, “Did you hear about the man who robbed three banks but gave the money back?” or “Did you hear about the teenager who sold brownies to raise a million dollars for refugees?” the very first thing people ask me is “where?”
Often I’m taken aback. What? I’m not talking about an escaped madman we need to be looking out for; these are typically quirky news stories or human-interest pieces where the geography seems trivial to me. What on earth does it matter if the teenager taking action for refugees is from Iowa or Idaho? Are you planning on nodding knowingly if the remorseful bank robber is Pennsylvanian? “Yeah, they’re all like that.”
It’s even weirder when the story doesn’t take place in real space. “Did you hear about the two women who started an Internet company selling perfumed cat litter?” and people will ask “where?” or “was this locally?” Who knows or cares, it’s the Internet.
If you really care about the location, I’ll try to start memorizing that part of the story, but you really ought to wait to ask until I finish the sentence instead of being all Interrupting Cow about it.