No Way, L.A.
Responding to our item below on how the fires are tailor-made for the local TV news, a couple of readers point out that, in contrast, local NPR outfit KCRW is doing virtually nothing at all.
Alas, the fires point out the huge weakness in KCRW's armor: Despite pulling in millions of dollars in annual pledge drives, the station still has no local news operation to speak of. (Apparently it costs a lot to send ol' Nic Harcourt to New York to broadcast from the Museum of TV and Radio, where he seems to be half the time these days.)
Warren Olney, while one of the few local media class acts out there, mostly interviews pundits. He has no reporters at his fingertips, filing reports from the field. And... well, that's it. Outside of NPR news feeds and Olney's pundit chats, KCRW pretty much sticks to what it knows best, its music programming.
This weakness wasn't really noticed during the whole gubernatorial recall mess because that story was pundit-ready. It's easy to line up twelve talking heads to ramble on and on about Gray vs. Schwarzie. But those pundits are useless when it comes to local tragedy: "Whaddyuh think, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe?" "Mmm...fire bad!"
As a result, as the readers below note, KCRW has been stunning in its virtual silence regarding the biggest natural disaster in some time to hit the region. (No, Schwarzie getting elected doesn't count.) But at least they're playing that new Belle and Sebastian song!
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