[EAS] Blue Alerts Are Back

[Adrienne Abbott]

Sharon makes an excellent point--sometimes you DON'T need an EAS activation
to get critical information to the public. Even with CAP, few news
departments receive EAS information when an activation is made. Let's face
it, for years now EAS has been relegated to the rack room and activations
come and go unseen by human eyes. Reporters don't learn about EAS in
J-school, anymore than Emergency Managers learn about it from FEMA. 

Usually the only way the news dep't knows that an EAS activation has been
made is if they see the crawl on a TV in the newsroom or hear it on the
radio. And usually they're watching a competing station on those TV's. With
automated Master Control operations, the news staff doesn't know where to go
to find information about an EAS activation. Too many stations don't set up
their CAP EAS programs to share the activations on the news department
computer network or the computers in the radio station air studios.  

Emails from a state or local law enforcement agency which go directly to
Assignment Editors, Producers, reporters and on-air staff have become much
more reliable way to get information, including warning messages to the
public. And emails are about to be eclipsed by Social Media, including
Twitter and Facebook and whatever the Next Big Thing is... 

AMBER Alerts still work but only because DOJ put a lot of $$$ into training
for state and local officials and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children has continued to support and publicized the program. I
don't know if there's an appetite or the funding for a similar Blue Alert
training program or if there's a national police organization which would
provide continued Blue Alert support and information for broadcasters and
law enforcement.  

Adrienne Abbott
Nevada EAS Chair

-----Original Message-----
From: EAS [mailto:eas-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of Sharon Tinsley

In Alabama, we worked with the Governor's office to establish the Blue
Alert.  It DOES NOT go over EAS.