Emergency Alert System Test to be Exposed to No One as Social Media Ignored in Favor of Broadcasters
Someone needs to tell the Federal Emergency Management Agency that everyone will be at work at 11 a.m. tomorrow, when it will conduct a nationwide test of its Emergency Alert System via ... television and radio!
FEMA should bring these back instead.
Yeah, news flash, our overpaid federal geniuses: No one watches TV or listens to the radio during that time, and if a real national emergency -- say a nuclear power plant melt-down -- were to happen, we might be in the dark if you depend on old-school broadcasting to spread the word.
We know the economy is bad, and many unemployed folks are in fact at home watching daytime TV. But this is ridiculous.
The Wall Street Journal:
At any given time of day, about 25.1 million people between 18 and 49 years old were watching TV of any kind ...
Nielson, meanwhile, says 213 million Americans were "active" online last summer.
While you're going old school on us, feds, why don't you send a press release for the next day's papers and skip the broadcasters all together?
The agency will apparently interrupt unwatched TV/cable/satellite signals with an annoying sound and a test message. The agency:
Similar to local emergency alert system tests, an audio message will interrupt television and radio programming indicating: 'This is a test.'
Yes, FEMA, and you're a FAIL.
Too bad most Americans will be hard at work Facebooking.
What FEMA needs to do to get your attention is interrupt Twitter, Facebook and TMZ.
To be fair, the agency states that " ... we're asking everyone to join us by spreading the word to your neighbors, co-workers, friends and family -- share this web page, post a message on your social media site, and feel free to embed our videos on your website or blog."
Way to crowdsource your work, FEMA.
[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com/@LAWeeklyNews]
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