Assessing Television Coverage of the Bay Area Earthquake

A scrumptious Black Forest cake to Letofsky for his commentary. He hit almost every observation I made as my eyes clung to the set and my thoughts raced, trying to sort fact from rumor and figure out the extent of the damage in Santa Clara County and Oakland--trying to convince myself that my parents and sister were unharmed.

I was annoyed with the L.A. stations spending so much time explaining the impact the earthquake had on Southern California. True, local stations should report from a local angle, but in view of the fact that a major earthquake had occurred less than an hour before and viewers were panicking about the well-being of family and friends, was it really important to interrupt Bay Area coverage to tell us where in Southern California the earthquake was felt?

ERIKA HIRAMATSU, Los Angeles