Oil Leak Didn't Happen Near New York City, so It's Not 'Big News'

A question arises about the level of media coverage of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: The oil leak is the worst environmental disaster in history, certainly a huge story but we have seen no network interruption of regular network programming, not even a la O.J. Simpson on the highway in the white Bronco, not even on Day 86, as news reports indicated that BP finally had found a way to cap the oil leak.

Would this be true if the area at risk of being destroyed were not the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, but the boardwalk along the media capital of the world in the self-proclaimed "Greatest City in the World," New York City?

We thinks this would be a far "bigger" story if the oil leak were occurring along the New York City shores, that at least network programming would be interrupted with urgent news that the oil leak problem was being resolved. For example, if New York City ever experienced anything like Hurricane Katrina, which was more potent than 9/11, mainstream America never would have heard the end of it.

Media decision-makers are based in NYC. They seem to be entirely self-centric. That's why they have not treated the oil leak or Katrina's tragic aftershocks on the level that 9/11 was promoted. Our national news perspective is distorted as a result.

A blogger on the site, dailyskew.com, is a Brooklynite who explores how New York City arrogance afflicts national media coverage, and perhaps explains in the process why the big news regarding the disastrous oil leak did not cause network programming to be interrupted. If it doesn't happen in New York, then apparently it isn't important.

On dailyskew.com, our Booklynite speculates:

... That if pilot Sully Sullenberger had heroically landed U.S. Airways Flight 1549 somewhere way out on, let's say, Lake Ontario, instead of on the Hudson River, "it would have been a blurb, not a national historic moment."

...Amid the aftershock of 9/11, consider how much attention was focused on the Twin Towers, not on the Pentagon: "Quick fact: The Pentagon was also hit."

We might also cite the disproportion of sports coverage given to New York City teams, especially the Yankees, who take the money from being in a larger media market to purchase the best players.

Take note of how when New York City government went broke during the 1970s, and when Wall Street went broke two decades later, New York turned to the "lesser" nation at large for bailouts, as though these were entitlements.

This would all amount to a fun social conversation regarding the alleged New York arrogance, if it did not affect national news coverage.

If the oil leak had occurred outside of New York City's harbors, no doubt there would have been more extensive coverage of the oil leak, and network coverage would have been interrupted for coverage of whether the oil leak was finally capped.

We could order pizza to celebrate the capping of the oil leak, but if it were not a "genuine New York City pizzeria pizza," it would simply not measure up.

SOURCE

http://skew.dailyskew.com/2009/01/is-new-york-city-ov