Article in Poynter by Janet Coats and Joy Mayer 10/11/24

Headline: “Where’s the coverage of communities that didn’t ‘dodge a bullet’ with Hurricane Milton?”

Subhead: “Local television news forecast the storm up and down the coast. But after it struck, the cone of coverage felt like it narrowed”

“For days leading up to the storm, local and national news coverage focused on a threat to Tampa and St. Petersburg that none of us have seen in our lifetime. The Tampa region is one of the most vulnerable in the world to the storm surge a major hurricane brings. Both cities could be inundated with water. So the urgent warnings and tense anticipation about what would happen there made sense.”

“. . . In journalism, we’ve talked a lot about news deserts. Those conversations have focused on the decline and even death of local newspapers. But we also have local television news deserts. And that is a very real, life-threatening problem when a big storm comes to Florida.”

“. . .It’s a stark example of what it means to be in a television news desert. News deserts in proximity to major television markets aren’t just a Florida thing. As a friend and former Sarasota journalist noted: If a tornado happens in southern Indiana, coverage often comes out of Louisville. This also isn’t just a problem for natural disasters. People who live two hours from a major market are accustomed to being undercovered. The concentration of journalists in urban areas is unavoidable.”

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2024/hurricane-coverage-less-known-cities-lacking/