[EAS] EAS and CMAS

[Adrienne Abbott]

You also have to consider the attitude of some emergency managers who
deliberately choose the option allowed by CAP to send out their warnings
only to cell phones and/or landlines. For various reasons, they would not
favor making CMAS/WEA warnings mandatory EAS activations. Some emergency
officials think they are better off when they can limit the warnings to the
area directly impacted by the event. Others think cell phone messaging, like
telephone notification, will keep the information "secret" from the media
and they won't have to deal with reporters, cameramen, live trucks and all
the "headaches" that come with both the electronic and print media. The
"Mayor Vaughn Factor"* may not be realistic, but it does exist. These are
the same emergency managers who think the role of the broadcast media is to
simply repeat whatever information they do issue over and over again,
without sending crews to the scene, without updating the information,
without asking the neighbors "how do you feel"...kind of like NOAA Weather
Radio. I'm not knocking NOAA--it has its place, but you can't really listen
to it for more than 10 minutes.

Adrienne Abbott
Nevada EAS Chair
Nevada Broadcasters Association

From: suzanne at mab.org

I guess I've been around too long and I know what closets too many of the
political skeletons are hiding in.....  

CMAS arose out of the federal WARN Act that soon-to-be-former Sen. Jim
DeMint of SC introduced about seven or eight years ago. The original WARN
Act had a lot of good things in it to improve our national alert and warning
system. By the time the backroom deals were done (meaning the cell phone
guys got in the back room and hacked and slashed the bill to ribbons), the
bill was stripped of everything good, cell phone messaging was voluntary,
and so -- As of today, more than 70% of cell phone companies have opted OUT
of CMAS.  And the Big Four, ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, have opted in
"in part," meaning they will deliver alerts in some parts of their service
areas, but not necessarily all.  And they won't tell you which areas they
will and won't.  But they trumpet it like it's God's gift to the safety of
the American public.  What a farce.  Politics and PR at its worst.

Please don't hang your hat on CMAS, or begin to believe that it will inform
anyone or keep anyone safe.  We shouldn't even be wasting time or space on
it, on a serious alert and warning discussion board like this.  It's PR
fluff.  (And, being a former radio news director, I know fluff when I see
it.  Fluff is a polite name for what comes out of the back end of a steer.)

We'd make better use of our time by talking about how we can bring station
management and state/local EMA folks to the table to, not only take EAS
messages seriously and carry them, but also carry the all-important
follow-on information.  

I b*tch-slapped several FEMA and FCC officials the day after Sandy because,
out of 9 "staying in touch in an emergency" tips the FCC put on its website,
#9 was "Tune to local radio and TV.". 1 thru 8 had to do with how to squeeze
the last nanosecond of juice out of your smartphone.  Really???!  9th put of
9?  Obviously there's a perception in bureaucrat-land that broadcasting is
either irrelevant, or falling down on the job.  Increasing relevance and
making sure we're doing our job as broadcasters - first informers - to me,
that's a waaaay more productive conversation than ANYTHING having to do with
CMAS.

Suzanne Goucher, Maine Association of Broadcasters
(channeling Ann Arnold, who is sitting up in heaven applauding this email)