For years we have all known that no story is really a national story unless it occurs east of the Potomac. That is certainly proven once again this week because – OMG! – it’s hot in New York City! It makes me laugh to watch the national news media fall over themselves to talk about the “dangerous heat” that is sweeping the East Coast.

I happen to live in Dallas where it has been in the high 90′s – and OMG! – even reached 100 degrees a few times already this summer. Amazingly we all survived – and the national media failed to swoop into town to breathlessly report on the “dangerous heat” we were experiencing.

In fact, there have been many cities throughout the Midwest that have flirted with – or actually dipped over 100 degrees – this summer. But there was no national correspondent standing on the dust swept streets in Kansas to warn us how to protect ourselves from the oppressing temperatures.

Of course, it is the same story with flooding which gets short shrift on the national newscasts and channels – unless it affects the suits at the networks. Then it becomes BIG national news. I see it, and chuckle to myself. And they wonder why those East Coast-centric national newscasts continue to lose relevancy with the viewers across America. Duh!

It reminds me of the time I spent as a news director in Buffalo back in the day. It was a few years after the big Blizzard of ’77. We noticed that winter never officially started anywhere in the country – until we had a blizzard-like storm in Buffalo. The national media would come to town and make a big deal out of it – Buffalonians would laugh at the coverage – and get back to their shoveling and plowing – comforted by the knowledge that once again they had helped the country officially move into the winter snow season. It was our civic duty apparently.

And so it is – now that the East Coast has reached sweltering temperatures – the summer heat season has officially begun. That’s good to know.

Jim

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 at 8:40 am and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.