Happy NUCLEAR New Year's Eve?
1/1/17 Judy Carley
As America debates the legitimacy of prohibiting what is deemed “fake news” from unknown sources, we cannot forget the serious mistakes the BIG GUYS make, when taking part in the ‘I reported it first’ news that too often becomes an issue of dissemination of false information, if not something much worse, increasing fear by doing what some would argue is yelling FIRE in a tense America.
Such was the case on New Year’s Eve, in Upstate New York when CBS’s WBNG reported a “nuclear explosion” at 6:22 p.m.
One minute later it was updated and the wording was changed to “possible explosion.”
Meanwhile Fox’s WICZ was taking their time and perhaps waiting for more concrete facts before using a CLICK-INDUCING word like NUCLEAR.
The incident was scary, for many people. What could be happening? American unrest rearing its ugly head? That comet that we were supposedly able to see? Had the ISIS threat against American churches on Christmas been a smokescreen and the real attack was on New Year’s Eve?
People in Tioga & Broome County didn’t know much. They reported houses shaking and a thunderous BOOM, thought by some to be an explosion. A mushroom cloud reported and news giant CBS used the word NUCLEAR?
One thing that was evident was that neither of the two reporting news agencies had a clue of what was happening. In this era of technology, others were quickly notified and those believing in DUE DILIGENCE dispelled fears of a military experiment, plane crash, or even as some thought, a meth house blowing up
Meanwhile many were frustrated, while desperately searching for news on the TV, police scanners, and even internet news websites like drudgereport.com.
Below are snippets of the very little information that was coming out. Meant to show how this information was JUST ENOUGH to cause alarm, while not confirming ANYTHING.
Firewire Tioga County is a facebook page that is run by volunteer firemen, and has more than 14,00 “likes.” They are described as “Your source for emergency incidents, road closures, and storm warnings in Tioga County, NY.” Nuclear fears aside, their posts helped to fuel the terrorist threat fears, by making us think - this is not a single incident?
In fact, one of the first people to respond thought that those who were worried, were idiots. After all, why would anyone target upstate New York?
We have train stations capable of accidents and companies like BAE & Lockheed Martin whose defense contracts alone could make them a target.
We are 2 hours from Lake Ontario, where the majority of nuclear facilities are. 3 hours from the city that has also been the target of terrorism.
We are less than 3 hours from the Franklinville, and many Upstate New York citizens are concerned with fracking and pipeline issues such as gas leak purported on LiveLeak:
In this world where the number of of PTSD sufferers continually grows, news stations and reporters should be held to a HIGHER standard.
Not only are they doing something dangerously close to yelling FIRE in a crowded building, but they are also diminishing trust in the news media by continually putting out false, or premature news. Soon no one will trust any news source, even when it is something life-saving that they NEED to know.
I would like to apologize if you see this as horrible shameless self-promotion. I am so angry that a CBS affiliate can garner an unimaginable amount of hits by "mistakenly" using the world NUCLEAR, in this era while the little truth-telling writers are getting the 3rd degree as "fake news" givers. Judy.