CNN President On The Fonts Rita Needs ("CATEGORY 4=viewership". Insensitivity due to Blackberry)

Earlier this week, Public Eye looked at the fine line broadcast journalists walk when covering stories that could be dangerous to the public -- like hurricanes. When does news coverage go over the line and become hype, alarmist or crass ratings plays? When does lack of coverage become a disservice? Over the years, for example, CBS News, along with the other networks, has occasionally been accused of overkill in covering storms that eventually petered out.

In that light, an e-mail that Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN/US sent to several staffers about the graphics to be used during coverage of Hurricane Rita may be of interest. (CNN)

The term CATEGORY 4=viewership. (Everbody knows the cateogires [sic] after Katrina)

Could replace the generic "Hurricane Rita" lower-third banner. Or better still we could flash the status top left where we put "New Video" in the same large font.

Mike, can your guys design something arresting? Wil and David, pls figure out something for tonight in the meantime.

The sentence, "The term CATEGORY 4 =viewership" may strike some as on hypish side of programming instructions. But Klein doesn't think so at all and says he was trying to make sure CNN used language that would properly inform his audience that Hurricane Rita was a big, dangerous storm.

"In the wake of Katrina," Klein told me, "the public became highly aware of the distinctions between categories. They know that a Category 4 is an especially strong hurricane." He wanted the CNN audience to have that information clearly and forcefully, and so he told his staff, "let's make sure to use that term and use it constantly." He says using that precise term -- Category 4 -- was the best way, post-Katrina, "to indicate to the viewer that is important."

Klein also said he "sent it from my Blackberry as I was driving" (come on, Jon, safety first) and that he wasn't as precise or complete with his language as he would have been otherwise.

And he noted, "When everyone is covering the same story, it makes a huge difference how you cover it."

"When does news coverage go over the line and become hype, alarmist or crass ratings plays?"

The moment the coverage starts. I always discount what the news is saying because they have a vested interest in making things sound worse than they really are in order to get viewers.

I also discount everything government officials say, since they also have a bias to make things seem worse than they are. There is no upside to them understating the danger while making the emergency seem much worse causes more people to react and therefore if things do happen to turn out bad, they have their a**es covered.

It is all hype, all the time, with only a kernel of truth contained deep in the spin.

The biggest disaster came from the stupid government forcing everyone to leave so soon and then making everyone use the few official evacuation routes.

I didn't leave Dickinson until about noon on Thursday and I wouldn't have left then except my wife was freaking out due to the media coverage. I went south, since it was obvious by that time that the storm was heading to the north east and that all highways to the north were jammed.

I slipped into Alvin and then headed south on 35 until I was forced by the state police to join a big line of cars and trucks to head north on 36, which is also an official evacuation route. The first chance I got, I got off of 36 and made my way to Victoria using back roads. On the back roads, there was gasoline available and the traffic was not bad. I got on 59 south and when I hit Goliad, I took 239 up to San Antonio. It took me about 7 hours to get to Kerrville, where I found a hotel, but I would have made it much sooner if the stupid cops had not forced me to take the evacuation route.

The cops ought to let us take any road we want to take two days before the storm is going to hit instead of forcing everyone onto just a few roads.

The cops ought to let us take any road we want to take two days before the storm is going to hit instead of forcing everyone onto just a few roads.

That's some bureaucrat's "plan" in TxDOT and the govs office. Forcing you to do xyz at Day 2, Day 1 etc is what they spend your money coming up with. You just didn't know about it ahead of time.

If there was no plan, there'd be outrage that there were no cops forcing people to take the planned evac routes.

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