ABC Top Priority

While putting off studying for exams today, I caught a few minutes of an ABC-WKOW morning news broadcast.

From the time that I sat down, ABC's broadcast included devastating earthquake coverage in western-China where literally thousands have died. After showing footage of earthquake victims trying to contact family members and makeshift hospitals set up on grass lawns, ABC spends at least five minutes on a local story about a UW-Med Flight helicopter, which on it's return trip from LaCrosse crashed into the woods of Onalaska, Wisconsin. All three people aboard died-- a doctor, nurse as well as the pilot. About equal amounts of time were devoted to each story, and the helicopter story dominates the ABC-WKOW web page.

Although entirely pertinent to local news, I found it interesting that the amount of time spent on three casualties was the same as a thousand casualties . While WKOW viewers may have known the casualties in the helicopter story, I cannot determine that more time should be spent on the earthquake in china simply because there are more casualties.

A couple of tough questions: How do we weigh the importance of local news, versus international news when it comes to tragic accidents? Just because China has more casualties, does not mean that they are any more important than the three individuals who were killed in the UW-Med Flight accident. But do large scale tragic accidents become more news worthy than small ones just because of logistics?

http://wkow.madison.com/News/index.php?ID=21452