This piece by Tom Engelhardt in Salon really has me wondering --exactly where is the mainstream media on the Atlanta drought story? As the article points out, there's scads of coverage about what is happening, some on why it happened, very little on what to do next and nothing on the potential aftermath. As he notes:
And then, there's that question that has been nagging at me ever since this story first caught my attention in early October as it headed out of the regional press and slowly made its way toward the top of the nightly TV news and the front pages of national newspapers; it's the question I've been waiting patiently for some environmental reporter(s) somewhere in the mainstream media to address; the question that seems to me so obvious I find it hard to believe everyone isn't thinking about it; the one you would automatically want to have answered -- or at least gnawed on by thoughtful, expert reporters and knowledgeable pundits. Every day for the last month or more I've waited, as each piece on Atlanta ends at more or less the same point -- with the dire possibility that the city's water will soon be gone -- as though hitting a brick wall.
To be fair, the NYT has written on this, as has my hometown paper, the Seattle Times. But mostly there is silence. What makes this more tolerable is the way news outlets like Salon and other of the "nontraditional" media have stepped up to fill the gap, at least in a small way. It's a good proof point that there is a big benefit to our increasing news delivery continuum.