Was it irresponsible reporting?

WARNING: If you’re a fan of Tennessee football, you might find this post sacrilegious.

I’ve lived in East Tennessee almost half my life. I understand, for the most part, Big Orange mentality, or I thought I did. Until this past Tuesday. Now I wonder what is wrong with these people who call themselves Volunteers and worse, the media that perpetuates the most ridiculous of mindsets.

Now, I understand that not everyone has the same thoughts as me — for that you can all be thankful. However, the rampant nonsense that was broadcast on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 was beyond the pale.

At about 4:50 p.m. a 7.0 earthquake struck the nation of Haiti. That, folks, is the same kind of earthquake that hit the Oakland area of California in 1989, known as the “World Series Earthquake,” only stronger. Those who were alive then will remember watching in horror as people on the lower deck of the bridge there were crushed under the upper deck. People falling off — or jumping off, into San Francisco Bay. It was tragic. That was in America. A wealthy nation.

Tuesday afternoon, this tragedy hit the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Just to give you a clue, that area covers the westernmost parts of Africa, all of South and Central America, the Caribbean nations and parts of western Europe. Some pretty poor nations in that area. Haiti is the worst. Haiti, as a nation, can’t support the nine million people who live there. AIDS is prevalent. Tuesday’s earthquake killed and destroyed.

As I scoured the Internet and watched CNN for news — I’m normally a FoxNews gal, but they didn’t deem this to be as newsworthy as their regular programming, so I switched channels — I finally turned the TV to CBS to allow some non-quake stuff to fill the air, my brain on overload.

Suddenly, across my screen, the local affiliate broke into the show with BREAKING NEWS! I thought there was something new about the earthquake. I steeled myself to see something new. That breaking news was that Lane Kiffin had resigned his post as the head coach of the University of Tennessee football team. While I didn’t find the fact of his leaving surprising, I did find it surprising that the only breaking news I’d seen on this channel thus far was that this man was changing jobs.

Meanwhile, people were dying in Haiti. I almost called the station to let them know that something REALLY major had happened in the world. Something that was really life and death. Something that really mattered for more than five minutes.

About an hour later, if that, another round of BREAKING NEWS! I thought, “Aha! Now they’ll talk about the quake.” Nope, they regurgitated Kiffin news.

I have friends who were watching the NBC affiliate who knew all about the Kiffin issue, but until they accessed the Internet after their show had ended, they had no clue about the quake. That, my friends, is sad.

I thought that the 11 o’clock news would surely share about the destruction of a major city in a nation where now we’ve learned that probably 100,000 people have died. I was right! After Kiffin news. For about a minute, if that. It came across as Kiffin, by the way, there was an earthquake in Haiti, Kiffin.

I am angered that WVLT and WBIR (I don’t know about WATE or the Fox affiliate) chose to promote the Kiffin news over the earthquake. I’m astounded that people here are seem more rankled over the fact that Kiffin dissed Tennessee to return home to California. I’m ashamed to call myself a Tennessee Volunteer fan. I might not be any longer.

I don’t know what they were thinking. No doubt they assumed that their viewers would be more concerned about the coach. I call it irresponsible reporting.

Related posts:

1. death