<p>Thanks. OOps.</p>
<p>I didn’t know the story about the 8 year old boy, and his sister and his mother. I hope that’s accurate, since so many stories get started and then we find out later they weren’t true.</p>
<p>
That’s where I am at with this crisis. With Newtown, I was glued to the TV, although being a retired teacher had something to do with it. But this time, I turned the TV off after a half an hour or so.</p>
<p>It bothers me. Am I becoming desensitized to this kind of thing?</p>
<p>The good thing about all news all the time stations is that when you get off work or finally have time to tune in you can find out what’s going on, without having to wait for a specific newscast. That may be where some of the demand for continuous coverage is. </p>
<p>There seems to be an element of kill the messenger in some of the criticisms of the coverage of this story (or any story.) The press is far from perfect but the danger of silencing or controlling the press is much greater than having too much information flying around.</p>
<p>I’m not desensitized but I am frustrated by the way reporting has become not much more than a twitter feed with a live camera. A barrage of the same information repeated over and over and over with every tidbit, including absolute wrong information, highlighted and then repeated over and over and over, with items hours old tagged as “breaking news” … when what is needed is a bit of time for some actual gathering of information and then reporting it in a sensible manner. </p>
<p>The local TV just had a seemingly endless parade of bigwigs making bland statements about how more police on the T are there to make you feel more secure and how they’ll track the perpetrator down. OK. Not many years ago, the news response would have been to distill that to 5 or 10 seconds because the reporter would realize nearly all of it is empty air, just voices doing their corporate turn on camera.</p>
<p>07Dad, I read at the time that Jenna Bush did not have a White House wedding because of security concerns. It was much easier to secure the Texas ranch. If this is true, it’s too bad. She endured the scrutiny and criticism and loss of anonymity that goes along with being part of the first family, she should have had the privileges, as well. The Texas wedding was beautiful, with the stone altar and all the wildflowers. I hope the dedication of the library takes place without incident.</p>
<p>Kill the messenger implies hating someone for telling you the truth you don’t want to hear. I believe neither of these are true for the masses.</p>
<p>Wellspring, thank you. Much of the reporting I saw was quite responsible, and I think sometimes people read too much into what’s reported. Police are questioning someone is not the same thing as police have a suspect is not the same thing as police have made an arrest. But I see people conflating all those things. I think people need to be better consumers of the news. And they need to turn off the 24/7 news channels. </p>
<p>FlyMe, I think it’s healthy to not watch this stuff nonstop. We don’t have cable, and dh still had to tell me to turn off the TV during Sandy Hook. Each report was more horrifying than the previous one. Sometimes it’s just too much.</p>
<p>The news used to be very careful with putting out only factual information. They prided themselves with being the first BUT ALSO being correct.</p>
<p>Somewhere along the line they no longer felt a need to state facts. They will say “according to this or that station or person” and then just state information with no regard to it being factual or not.</p>
<p>No one is held accountable for the misinformaion that can and has ruined peoples lives when they get it wrong.</p>
<p>Now being first is rewarded whether it is fact or not.</p>
<p>Agree - the press is far from perfect AND so are viewers!</p>
<p>Turn off your tv. Change the radio station. Click off social media. It sort of becomes a non-issue for you then. You can’t control the people who insist/thrive on watching hours of it - who are happy to see the real of the same video over and over - who stay on the channel because the news is still “breaking”. </p>
<p>Used to be that getting your daily news meant turning on the tv at 6pm or 11pm or picking up the morning/evening paper. We didn’t have so much of the “in-between” - because we asked for it (people in general) now we have it - in your face (if you choose), 24 hours a day (if you choose).</p>
<p>I’d say that this was one of the first such events in which there was NOT a broad rush to judgment, and a recognition by many, many people that we need to get the facts. Perhaps we’ve realized that the deluge of electronic info includes lots of errors and misinformation. There has been lots of speculation, but people have seemed to recognize that it is speculation.</p>
<p>Part of the problem is that people aren’t really equipped to deal with bad news from the entire globe. We are equipped to deal with local issues. Now, we know about every tragedy in nearly real time.</p>
<p>You will ruin your life with this.</p>
<p>That is not to say these tragedies are not awful and don’t deserve our charitable contributions, just that a newspaper is probably all we can keep up with, reasonably, imho.</p>
<p>These are the kinds of questions I have during this crisis, so maybe some of you know the answers:</p>
<p>-Do hospitals have to call in extra doctors to deal with the carnage?
-In a situation like this, are doctors brought in from outside the area, much like utility trucks are brought in after a horrific storm?</p>
<p>These questions come to mind because of the multiple amputations performed. Assuming those surgeries are intricate and time consuming, I’m wondering how all the patients were attended to simultaneously.</p>
<p>If I were a doctor, and obviously I’m not, I would have to mentally prepare myself to perform an amputation. So I’m thinking of those who started their day having no idea what they were going to be required to do! Yes, I know it’s all in a day’s work, but they’re real people, too.</p>
<p>Someone upthread asked what happened to the older runner seen in the blast video. Here is an article about him:</p>
<p>[The</a> 78-year-old runner behind the Boston photo](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/78-old-runner-behind-boston-photo-004045310.html]The”>http://news.yahoo.com/78-old-runner-behind-boston-photo-004045310.html)</p>
<p>FlyMeToTheMoon, the bomb site is within a few miles, 5 miles at the most, of Brigham and Women’s, Childrens Hosp, MGH, Beth-Israel Deaconess, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston University MC, and there are large community hospitals within a wider radius. All of the hospitals would have cancelled all elective procedures and, if necessary, discharged as many patients as possible. I doubt that they had to call in outside medical personnel; I can’t imagine that outsiders would be able to function well in a strange hospital. They would have called in as many people as possible.</p>
<p>Doctors in major cities especially make those kinds of decisions daily - difference is they may face one or two of these decisions in a day, not several. Their mindset must be different - you can look at it as an amputation or you can look at it as saving a life. Which doc do you want doing your surgery?</p>
<p>A major city like Boston has many health care facilities and are immense in size. Doctors generally have “priviledges” at more than one local facility. No doubt docs from private practices - surgeons, specialists, etc. were called in - but to hospitals where they routinely do work anyway.</p>
<p>sax–I was 13 and delivered newspapers for the Dallas Times Herald (RIP) when President Kennedy was killed. I kept the papers for the week after the shooting. I watched TV for those days. There was continuous coverage on TV.</p>
<p>There was a lot of speculation in the newspaper and reporting of the same thing over and over again on TV.</p>
<p>Here is a college thesis on the media and JFK’s murder.</p>
<p><a href=“https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:uCLBsEdoGpMJ:history.rutgers.edu/honors-papers-2012/doc_download/405-constant-coverage-how-the-media-has-kept-the-assassination-of-president-john-f-kennedy-relevant+misinformation+news+coverage+kennedy+assas&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg1rtbNzCQfTX2ERSBsKUNR6IzmgkgcOXcEz82vEM9v6fwx01kA-hfeI6ODad76ddXOmxIhKp-lUos4YITYdmztFNwlUwvrbJPUJCxR43OSmulithch9MhrasVE4IrfyYDJYAp3&sig=AHIEtbT9CjZ-XtrqUOZKEbtAIdhKQfv9tQ[/url]”>https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:uCLBsEdoGpMJ:history.rutgers.edu/honors-papers-2012/doc_download/405-constant-coverage-how-the-media-has-kept-the-assassination-of-president-john-f-kennedy-relevant+misinformation+news+coverage+kennedy+assas&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg1rtbNzCQfTX2ERSBsKUNR6IzmgkgcOXcEz82vEM9v6fwx01kA-hfeI6ODad76ddXOmxIhKp-lUos4YITYdmztFNwlUwvrbJPUJCxR43OSmulithch9MhrasVE4IrfyYDJYAp3&sig=AHIEtbT9CjZ-XtrqUOZKEbtAIdhKQfv9tQ</a></p>
<p>To be clear: I don’t want to kill the messenger or silence the story in any way. I just think that trying to fill the news 24/7 is problematic. It does take some time to gather information and source it correctly. There is only so much substantiated factual information at any point in time. There was too much speculation and incorrect broadcasting in my opinion yesterday. I did turn it off fairly quickly. Agreed that there is little downside to being inaccurate and there is apparently a huge upside to being first. </p>
<p>Very sad; healing thoughts and prayers to all affected.</p>
<p>07DAD, you’re older than I am, but I used to work at the Morning News in college when the Times Herald was still around. I miss the days of a two-newspaper town.</p>
<p>The President will be giving a briefing on the bombing momentarily.</p>
<p>It’s also not particularly helpful when the President’s senior advisor bats his eyes and says “let’s not speculate, but it IS tax day.”</p>