Disaster porn is big business for the news media, and nobody in Oklahoma City likes to exploit, capitalize and profit from it more than the folks at Channel 9.
This was evident during Hurricane Harvey. Despite every national media outlet and news service being on the scene, News 9 went wall-to-wall with its coverage of the disaster, sending Kelly Ogle, stormchasers, and what felt like the entire news staff on a 500-mile trip to the region to provide round-the-clock coverage of the flooding, devastation, and heroic recovery efforts.
For example, this is what the front page of News9.com looked like for what seemed like a week:
To be clear, I'm not trying to discount or make light of what was a indeed massive news event and terrible tragedy. It's an awful situation, but News 9 using so many resources to cover a natural disaster in a different state felt exploitive, and makes you question their motives.
With all that being said, I guess we can't blame them for sending an alert this morning that informed viewers about the big 8.2 "hurricane" that struck Mexico this morning. They're obviously dealing with hurricane fatigue:
Yeah, that's it – a massive 8.2 hurricane rocked Mexico. I think it was the biggest one to hit the country since an F5 stuck Mexico City in the 1980s. Also, I guess we now know what happened to the KFOR Social Media Bandit that ran away during the move to the new offices. We never thought they would be scooped up by Channel 9.
Anyway, I guess I'm going to wrap this up and watch more tv news media coverage of Hurricane Irma. Please support hurricane (and earthquake) recovery efforts by donating to the Red Cross.
