For about a week toward the end of August 2011, the news networks in the U.S. seemed utterly captivated, or obsessed, with Hurricane “Irene,” which was running up the east coast from North Carolina to New England. The prognosis had been given as a fait accompli when the storm was just pulling out of the Bahamas. A rough convergence of the models was taken for certainty. If this obsessiveness sounds familiar, it may be because on virtually any major story, the 24-hour news networks have tended to crowd out other stories even when the marginal utility of the added coverage on the major story is very low. Editors go with filler on the major story rather than risk losing viewers by breaking away to cover the other news to a meaningful extent. Viewers who are not obsessed with the main story may view the networks as obsessed while the networks may view themselves as merely satisfying a growing obsession by viewers. In any case, the narrowness of coverage, as if a major story should crowd out other news, is problematic, for it ultimately leaves the American people less well informed than they would otherwise be of what is happening around them.
The full essay is at "The 24/7 News-Cycle."
