Safety Issues: Hurricane Katrina Safety Lessons Lost on Local Media
Personal safety gets less attention than property damage, says SafetyIssues.com about national and local media coverage of Hurricane Ophelia.
(I-Newswire) - According to SafetyIssues.com, analysis of state-by-state local news reporting about Hurricane Ophelia shows that personal safety is a low-priority topic, out-ranked by property damage and tracking the hurricane's path. The company is calling for improved just-in-time delivery of practical safety information to prevent personal injury and fatal accidents.
The Hurricane Ophelia News Directory ( http://www.safetyissues.org/ophelia ) uses Google News technology to continually sort Ophelia news by category and location, and was set up by SafetyIssues.com to support multi-sector crisis management efforts.
Out of 5,300 stories processed, only 228 -- or 4.3% -- contain the word "safety."
Just 12 stories -- or 0.02% of all Hurricane Ophelia stories -- offer safety tips.
For example, the simple safety procedure known as "ICE" is not to be found in a single Hurricane Ophelia story. ICE stands for "In Case of Emergency" and is promoted as a universal label for emergency contact numbers stored on a person's cell phone, and thus helping emergency personnel.
By comparison, 25% of the stories use a variation of the word "damage," and 24% mention the word "path." The majority of stories have been short weather forecasts and warnings. Few tell readers what to do.
SafetyIssues.com will use its findings in a report outlining its recommendations for improved personal safety reporting by local and national media so that weather warnings can include practical advice that can help save lives and prevent personal injury.
Personal safety also ranked low in Hurricane Katrina reporting when such an emphasis would have made the greatest difference.
According to SafetyIssues.com, as of September 3, 2005, the company had sorted through 163,000 articles online about Hurricane Katrina through its Hurricane Katrina News Directory ( http://www.safetyissues.org/katrina ) featuring 15 specialized news feeds.
Fewer than 6% of the Hurricane Katrina articles mentioned the word "safety." Only 16 articles offered safety tips. No stories made note of ICE, a topic that was brought up only days later in just 8 stories nationwide.
By comparison, as of September 3, 2005, more than one-third of all online Hurricane Katrina stories mentioned oil or gas.
The following are the location news feeds provided by SafetyIssues.com's Hurricane Ophelia News Directory:
SafetyIssues.com Contact: John Simmons, Chief Technology Officer 703-992-6689 johnsimmons@safetyissues.org
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