Sarah Wonders What Was On The Top Half Of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram If Not The News Of Japan's Quake

Above is the 3 in the afternoon screencap from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Earlier today I blogged about the differences in how 3 of the online newspapers I look at every morning shared the news of the Japan Earthquake Disaster. With the Fort Worth Star-Telegram not giving much of an indication that this is a big story.

Sarah R then commented with a question....

Sarah R has left a new comment on your post "Japan's 8.9 Earthquake & Tsunami In Seattle, Fort Worth & Dallas": 

"So what was the top half of the Star-Telegram? I'm just wondering what made the cut as "big" news this morning in FtW."

I went back to the Star-Telegram so I could tell Sarah what was at the top of that lame newspaper's front page.

This is what I told Sarah...

Sarah R---It is coming up on 3 in the afternoon. Checked the Star-Telegram again, figuring by now they'd have moved the Japan Quake and Tsunami to the top.

Nope.

Instead, big headline "Chuck Greenberg resigns as Texas Rangers CEO." Above and to the right of that, "NFL mock draft" with a little blurb. To the left of that a "Spring forward" note. An ad for JC Penney. Then several little headlines with links to a story. Top of those is "North Texans with ties to Japan keeping close watch" and "TCC to begin voluntary buyouts for longtime workers." Stuff like that.

Then if you scroll down to the bottom half of the front page, the original blurb about the quake has been altered, with the headline now "Strong quake strikes central Japan, felt in Tokyo." Adding a couple links, one of which is "1 missing, 4 rescued as tsunami hits West Coast."

Below is a screencap from the 2:41 pm version of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The blurb about the Japan Quake is still on the bottom half of the front page. It now does make mention that the tsunami has hit the west coast. One man was washed out into the Pacific in Oregon. Crescent City, California was badly damaged, again, with no deaths, unlike when it was hit by the tsunami generated by the 1964 Alaska Earthquake.

Japan's 8.9 Earthquake & Tsunami In Seattle, Fort Worth & Dallas

Above is a screencap of the front page of this morning's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, taken this morning around 7. The death toll is now in the 100s. And likely to rise much higher. An 8.9 quake is one of the worst ever recorded in the world and the worst ever in Japan. If I remember right the Seattle transit tunnel is built to withstand a 9.0 earthquake. I would not want to be in the bus tunnel or one of its stations should an 8.9 earthquake occur.

I learned Japan had had a bad quake and tsunami when I read the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this morning. As we learned recently, from Anonymous, if the Star-Telegram is not reporting it, it isn't news. The Star-Telegram had the Japan quake news on the lower half of their front page. This struck me as odd.

Below is the screencap with the Japan quake/tsunami news from the front page of the Star-Telegram.

I thought maybe the low key way the Star-Telegram was reporting this major disaster, so differently than the Seattle P-I, might have been due to the fact that Seattle is a Pacific Rim city, in the path of the incoming tsunami, with a lot of trade with Japan coming in and out of the Port of Seattle, while Fort Worth is a long ways from the Pacific Ocean with little trade coming or going with Japan.

And then I went to the Dallas Morning News. Dallas is also landlocked and a long ways from the Pacific Ocean. Dallas likely does a little more trade with Japan than Fort Worth does, which may account for the more prominent BIG NEWS way the Dallas Morning News reported the Japan quake,  as you can see below.

That is one scary looking tsunami in the picture from the Dallas Morning News. When I heard on the radio that tsunamis were hitting Hawaii I turned on the TV. There was live video of the beach by Diamond Head in Honolulu. But it was dark in Hawaii, you really could not see anything. The talking head described the water receding and the first tsunami flowing in. As he described that the water was receding again, but you could not see it.

I've got a bad feeling this is going to end up being one of the worst natural disasters ever.

Up Early The Second Friday Of March With No Tsunami From Japan Expected To Hit Fort Worth

It is the second Friday of the third month of 2011. In two days Daylight Savings Time starts up. Which means I may be doing my morning swimming in the dark for awhile.

This morning it is 44 degrees out there. I believe the 24 hour average has been over 50 degrees. So, I am going swimming this morning in that blue oasis you see in the picture.

I have myself a big backlog of blogging fodder this morning. Subjects ranging from gators to tsunamis.

Speaking of tsunamis.

I suspect the Galtex's, this morning, up in Seattle, are experiencing their first tsunami watch, as waves generated by Japan's worst earthquake ever, an 8.9 shaker, are expected to hit the west coast. To get to Seattle a tsunami has to makes its way in from the Pacific Ocean through the Straits of Juan de Fuca and then on to Puget Sound.

I remember one time heading out to Deception Pass on Whidbey Island to watch a possible incoming tsunami. No detectable wave was seen.

In my current location, hundreds of miles from saltwater, north of being deep in the heart of Texas, there will be no incoming tsunami today.

Just sunshine and semi-warm temperatures.

I think I'll go outside and work on my suntan right now. Talk to you later.