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August 30th, 2005

Hurricane Katrina: The Hunker Down Report

Did you hear? There was a hurricane that hit the south yesterday!

It’s clear that news reporters get aroused by the very thought of a natural disaster and being able to report on it from their “Storm Centers (R).” They love the drama, being able to fake compassion, and most of all, they love to say “hunkering down.”

Yesterday I watched a couple hours of coverage in the morning and caught three incidents of “hunker down.” Two of them came from the same person within a 30-second timespan and the third came, disappointingly, from Brian Williams, who really should know better.

Google News currently shows 171 results for “hunkering down” and hurricane and 60 results for “hunker down” and hurricane.

Did you hear the dreaded phrase at all yesterday?

Other words phrases I’ve heard too much of the last few days: bracing, storm surge, and devastation. Only one channel was annoying enough to refer to Katrina as the “Storm of the Century.” Not surprisingly, it was the local Fox station, the same one that brags how many Emmys they’ve won, an award that you have to nominate yourself for and that most stations have too much pride to bother with.

Posted in In the News

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