This map appeared on the NBC Nightly News back on March 23, 2008. The story was this one, about those poor souls who died on a sinking fishing boat in the Bering Sea. The problem, of course, is that's not the Bering Sea, it's the Gulf of Alaska. And that's not Dutch Harbor, this is Dutch Harbor:
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What I don't understand is how this mistake actually managed to get broadcast in Alaska. The NBC Nightly News had originally been broadcast 3 hours earlier, and this was the west coast rebroadcast. We routinely get updates during our NBCNN, when some talking head from California replaces Brian Williams to give us the latest breaking news. Did it really take an Alaskan to notice that they were 1300 miles off? Isn't anyone at NBC watching The Deadliest Catch?
3 comments:
This lax attitude about accuracy in the network newsrooms began when the news depts were viewed as profit centers rather than independent news operations. Fewer and less experienced reporters and backroom technicians and more soft news stories (where factual accuracy doesn't matter) has led to this type of carelessness. No wonder network news programs have fewer viewers than ever. (Sorry, Maia, Gramps is becoming a curmudgeonly grouch in his old age.)
Hey, Gramps, I can see your point! Even The Today Show has become very "tabloid-trashy" and very light in the news dept. It's amazing how they can drag some poor relative of a victim or other hapless person into a live interview and make them look foolish or pathetic. All for ratings.
That is a hoot, to say the least.
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