5.4

It felt strong. I mean it seemed to last a long time. Not only did you feel the swaying but you could hear the rumbling. For a few seconds, those of us who have lived through the Whittier and Northridge California quakes, one had to wonder if indeed this was THE BIG ONE. But thankfully, things began to subside and us earthquake vets knew that most likely we had dodged the bullet for now.

An earthquake is nothing to sneeze at. Especially in such a large area as Southern California. If the quake had continued to gain momentum and reached 6.0 or higher who knows what untold damage might have taken place. The fact that this was the first pretty big shaker since the 1994 6.7 Northridge quake made it a newsworthy event. Local TV and radio should be applauded for breaking into their regular programming to survey the situation and calm the public.

But this foretaste of a future darker reality also showcased the lengths that network/cable news, marketing executives, and an attention deficient populace could go to make a buck or two on a serious situation. With the Los Angeles media market inundated with reporters and ready to go pictures, the story was a cheap way to keep viewers glued to their TV screens for a large part of the day.

The question goes that if a tree falls in the forest but no one is there to record the event, did it actually take place. With a built in infrastructure, there was never any doubt that millions of eyeballs would witness what in the long line of things will be a non event. Literally no one was injured, a few walls collapsed, and a Macy's store had flooding problems. But based on the amount of coverage, one would have thought that LA was indeed sinking into the ocean. Why bring this up? Because recent intense natural disasters in places like China and Taiwan were afforded short shrift by the same news outlets. Not that the news organizations did not want you to know about the "real" suffering in Asia but cost analysis made it prohibitive for news shows to send out teams of reporters and camera people to such far off places. Top news executives know that the cost of such news gathering versus the negligible boost in TV ratings would make such an effort not worthwhile. Thus it is much cheaper and profitable to play up closer to home hurricanes, tornadoes, and smallish earthquakes.

Marketing types were also salivating over the quake. Not much time had passed before tape of Judge Judy and CBS' Big Brother house were passed on to the TV viewers. Folks could be seen steaming out of the judge's "court" and participants in CBS' show were being interviewed about their first earthquake experience. One can not recall seeing much footage of TV and/or movie sets being swept around in the much harsher Northridge quake. But obviously some marketers must have been more awake to this new opportunity to shamelessly get publicity for their shows.

Finally, the public found the quake an easy way to get on television. Cell phones and camcorders were quickly hustled out and common folk took videos of themselves and their surroundings to upload on to YouTube and to pass on to news programs. An at home TV newscaster calmly held his daughter and filmed all around while the quake was taking placed. Teens filmed their overhyped reactions with the hope that maybe their video would become an internet success.

Once again, if the July 29, 2008 earthquake had become a real catastrophe, then we should applaud the fact that so many could stand witness to the potential horror. But the quake was not a problem and untold valuable time was given to what really was a one to two hour story in a cheap way to fill up the ratings. But in a society weaned upon mindless police-runaway vehicle pursuits and not one exposed to true worldwide in-depth reporting what else would anyone expect.