The Wait Goes On for NOAA To Acknowledge the News Media's Role in Tsunami Warnings

Help me out here. There’s only so much reading anyone can do on the web. What I want to know is:

Has anyone anywhere read anything by any NOAA spokesperson that even hints the agency believes the news media should be telephoned when a killer tsunami is thought to have been generated?

We’ve read about automatic e-mailed bulletins. We’ve read about the proposed high-tech warning system for the Indian Ocean. We’ve read about all of that, but we haven’t read anything about low-tech telephone calls to the media!

And wouldn’t you think by now someone within NOAA would have publicly acknowledged the media’s role is transmitting tsunami warnings? Or have I just missed it?

If so, please point me to the story in which a NOAA spokesperson is on record saying something like: “We have reviewed our crisis communications protocols and will ensure that proactive telephonic contact with the major news media will be used when we have reason to believe a life-threatening tsunami has been generated anywhere on the planet.”

Or would that be too low-tech for scientists? Is there something about making a telephone call to a news organization that is just too far outside the scientific method for scientists?

I can’t believe that’s the case, but I’m beginning to wonder, because it keeps not coming up.

Take yesterday’s page 1 story in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin: “Isle scientists work to expand tsunami alerts; Warnings about large earthquakes will be sent to Indian Ocean nations that agree to plug in”. (The headline writer got it right: the story’s focus is on electronic devices that will automatically transmit data to countries that are “plugged in” to a high-tech system.)

In a 791-word article in which a veteran journalist known for her thorough reporting quotes various NOAA and University of Hawaii scientists and spokespersons, the word “media” appears not once. New tsunami information centers are mentioned, tide gauges are mentioned and another trip by NOAA representatives to another meeting on tsunami warning and mitigation is mentioned (Paris, March 3-8), but nobody mentions the proverbial “elephant in the living room” – the fact that a telephone call to international news media might have spared many lives in the Indian Ocean region on December 26.

It’s Time to Call the Media

Since we don’t know whether NOAA has contacted the Associated Press and CNN to bring them aboard for the next tsunami alert, let’s assume it hasn’t. There’s no evidence to the contrary.

I’ll start making calls and writing letters and will report here on what happens. This will either be a humbling experience (“Who’s calling, from where and why, and I'm sorry, Mr. Big is in a meeting.”) or a productive one.

I’m counting on senior news managers and policy makers to endorse the media's obvious and traditional role in alerting distant populations to critical information – populations that could learn of tsunami warnings from cable television channels and radio broadcasts.

I'm counting on them to be the mountain that calls on NOAA if NOAA won't call on them.

Doug Carlson
Honolulu, HI
February 22, 2005