Tuesday, August 02, 2005

The Indiana Connection

I hate the Indiana Connection. You know the type. The local news finds it necessary to translate some national news story into local fodder and then beat it like a dead horse. Prime example: the news has had a hey day with the Supreme Court nominee because once upon a time he went to grade school in Indiana. Or the girl that is missing in Aruba has 4th cousins twice removed living in the Indy area that must be interviewed to get their take on the situation. That kind of relevant stuff.

Tonight's Indiana Connection was in respect to the Toronto airplane psuedo-crash today. The 11 o'clock news was live at the Indy airport reporting on a poedunk flight that was supposed to make a quick pitstop at the Toronto airport. I tuned out but I think they were interviewing potential flyers who may have been on the flight that could have landed in the Toronto airport hours after bad weather caused an unrelated super-turbo jet to skid off the runway and newscasters were trying to get the at-home viewer to believe that even though the bad weather was long gone, there was still a potential danger to a flight that never took off and had no passengers, and never entered Canadian airspace.

I guess it would have been too easy to cover the actual plane that did take off, did land in Toronto, and did skid off the runway and burst into flames. But then again, who am I to question actual journalism.