[BC] Newsline January 18, 2002 -- Radio on Remote Control as Citizens Die

[N0JAA@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/1/2007 1:00:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:
 
Barry Mishkind said...
 

While I  am certainly among the more vocal critics of marginally 
staffed stations  and the bureaucratic, ego-driven EAS mess, the 
reference to Clear Channel  is almost completely urban legend.

Now, I may have some details  slightly off here, but the general 
thrust is that the situation was  mis-understood and mis-reported.




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I don't pretend to know the condition of radio stations at the time of the  
incident, but being a Railfan, I do recall the incident itself.  It might  be 
an urban legend, but there is sometimes a ring of truth to it, perhaps not in  
this incident, but in others.
 
In Florida, you would think the local radio stations would broadcast an  
emergency message the instant it was received from local, state or federal  
authorities.  Yet many times I have heard warning messages go out on the  local 
weather radio (tornado warnings, flash flood warnings, etc.), but nothing  goes 
out on the local radio stations (the AM stations are usually pretty good at  
relaying the warnings using the EAS, but many of the FM stations remain silent  
on the issue), or the alert goes out several minutes AFTER the original warning 
 was issued due to a network program or some other broadcast which the local  
station doesn't wish to interrupt.  
 
So while the Clear Channel fiasco may or may not be true, many legends  
usually are based on some tiny tidbit of truth, albeit severely skewed.  I  can't 
deny the possible misreporting, however, as there seems to be a lot of  that 
going around these days.
 
In Houston, I've seen just the opposite.  With all of the oil and  chemical 
refineries scattered around the area, most of the stations would put  out an 
EAS message the instant an emergency alert was received, usually  resulting in 
shelter-in-place orders and etc.  So I suppose it depends a  lot on where the 
radio station is located, who owns it, and what programming  they normally 
carry.
 
 
Paul Gray