It’ a Wednesday morning. Ionia escaped the REALLY bad weather that went south of us including tornadoes and other damage that rolled through Michigan last night. WION put the tornado WATCH on the air instantly. It’s what we do. We’ve done the BEST we can for nearly 20 years to cover weather for anyone who has the “radio” as their companion and may not have access to the ‘net whether at work, driving, or just those who prefer a live person covering weather.
I’m sad to report that in listening online to stations in some of the affected areas, even some where there were tornado WARNINGS. There was no live body in ANY of the stations I listened-to on the web. There were no recordings asking people to be AWARE of the possibility of strong, severe, or tornadic weather. Just music. That’s it.
I figured our watch would drop about 8:30 PM, and it did. We’re usually close to predicting how things will go, and we always check about 3, sometimes 4 radar and information sources to keep you up to date.
I’m ashamed of the “larger” radio industry. They are ONLY in it for the dollars they can pull out of the market. One of the stations I monitored was on a horrible sounding satellite feed, discussing the “open border”…obviously with nobody in-studio to try and inform their audience. This is a dis-service to the industry I’ve given 35 years of my life-to, and it turns people OFF to the potential of radio “being there” in emergencies….What scares me even more is that the people who NEEDED to be informed about impending tornadic activity had only their cellphones or TV. Think of this. Cellphones fail when towers are damaged….and some go down without power during an outage, and NOBODY in the path of a tornado should have to be glued to their TV sets when tornadic activity is headed their way (unless they have a basement TV and over-the-air reception, cable and satellite are on the “early fail” list, too.)
While WION did not have to go “live” for yesterday’s weather, we were HERE, and PREPARED for it. We watched radar, we have backup internet from Starlink when cable inevitably goes offline. And, we KNOW our area and what to watch-for….
But……my industry slowly puts a knife in it’s own existence because of idiots at the governmental level that “mandate” the little blue box….(not to be confused with the little blue pill)…called the EAS, which is designed for what I call the “least common denominator” of broadcaster that can’t get someone in-studio for emergencies. They no longer HAVE TO! The little blue box clears them of liability for not warning listeners, right? It does the job, right? Everyone hears it, right? The box goes off ONCE for each alert, then NO MORE…meaning if you didn’t hear the one alert, you don’t KNOW you have a tornado warning or any other kind of notification. But, the station’s owners “did the minimum” for their audience. Yep, the BARE MINIMUM as mandated. Not a a service to their public.
The EAS is a failed system. It creates “boy cries wolf” with our audience and EVERY audience when it screams at you twice for one “event” just because one county is added, removed, or a small change is made, AND….it’s very ancient “A-I” Can’t even pronounce “Saranac” or “Fallasburg”….among others.
Rely on media that is LIVE during emergencies. Don’t rely on the “squashed” duck sounds of the little box that our government mandates we have…..and, in 99 percent of cases, we’ll be IN-STUDIO for you, as we have for nearly 20 years now. We TRY. To serve YOU….because it’s the RIGHT thing to do, not a “bottom line” decision of something to cut when times are tough due to a bad economy handed to us from the White House.
We’re here for YOU…..and have been for almost 20 years, in ALL weather..and ALL economies…from WION.
