While working on my novel, I had turned on some stupid sitcom for background noise. It was on a local affiliate station (I won’t Name anyBody speCifically), and I almost spilled diet Coke all over my keyboard when I heard the local news promo for the evening newscast.
(I paraphrase because I might not have the exact wording here, but it is 90 percent close to exact)
“It’s cold out there tonight. If you don’t have a place to go, tune in for our 11 p.m. broadcast and we’ll tell you what shelters are open.”
What!?! What the heck were they thinking? That the homeless are all standing around in front of a TV and some burning barrels in post-apocalyptic cityscape; A tangled web of wires jury-rigging the box to a lamppost? Or there was a family of 10 crammed into a Honda, burning gas so they could watch Friends repeats on their mini-TV that plugs into the cigarette lighter? Has their demographics collapse to the point where only the homeless are tuning in (somehow)?
And while their logic skills were a systemic failure, this was obviously a failure of the people involved, too. Where where the editors and producers who were to think about this? Where were the over-the-top PC executives that worry about the American Flag or “Merry Christmas” might offend someone?
