Fustia

As I write this, is 9:30 AM, 28 hours after a wild-fire started near Aptos. The sky yesterday was a smokey yellow. Last evening’s television news from as far north as San Francisco devote most of the newscasts to the efforts.

We rely on our local news outlets to keep us informed… and when a disaster strikes, we need -immediate- updates.

So this morning I headed over the KSBW web site… only to find that the last update was 11 hours ago! (Well, they had some photos updated at 7:30, but photos are no help.)

Now, I have to admit wondering why, since the day their web site came up, they mentioned it literally dozens of times during their newscasts. Once or twice maybe, but incessantly?

I assumed it had to have something to do with money. Today, prompted by the lack of needed immediate updates, I decided to look a bit deeper.

What I found is that the KSBW site, like 69 other sites around the nation, comes out of St. Paul, Minnesota’s Internet Broadcasting, Inc., and is primarily filled with ads and news from CNN. While there are provisions for the placement of local news, it all has to be sent to St. Paul, first. And then get in line with the other 69 television stations vying for attention.

“Local?”

Hardly.

The “news” isn’t “new” – it’s 12 hours old. And the web site isn’t as much about serving the local community as it is a revenue stream for KSBW.

I ended up going to the CalFire (state) web site to get the latest information… something KSBW could have done… but didn’t.

As usual in this society, money comes before everything else – even in the face of a disaster.

Sigh…