Deploying news resources to News Zones often makes for bad news
CNN is particularly big on moving everyone to wherever the news is, and thus ends up with some very silly reporting.
Deploying your anchors to place X means that Place X WILL dominate the news, whether anything happens or not. When Wolf Blizter and Anderson Cooper are standing in the middle of the street in Boston they are not going to report on Congress, or Texas, or North Korea, or whatever.
Tremendous pressure exists to get some Boston news. As we saw yesterday, any straw of Boston news will be grabbed like it was a life line.
I would suggest that the TV reality-show event-news style leads to predictable, programmed news following pre-determined formulas.
Funerals and pictures of the departed and anecdotes about the departed are hardly news, but they are available, predictable reliable and emotional programming. Boilerplate announcements and press conferences that say nothing are also very predictable news. Heroes will be identified and presented as exceptional, even though there are always heroes. (A predictable story that appears unpredictable - perfect for event news.) The same goes for remarkably sympathetic victims, ironic twists and innocent children being innocent.
The dream of a reporter would be to be psychic and know where the news WILL be. Since that is impossible, we chase news like little kids playing soccer (where everyone runs at the ball rather than playing their position)... run to a place news might be, and then, by God, that is where the news WILL be.
