A news report about a growing wildfire always triggers concern for folks on the road and away from home.
But omitting the precise, or at least the general, location is a faux pas (to use a delicate French term) that seems to be growing in radio news reports with fires and other disasters, notes Grumpy Editor after hearing a top-of-the-hour ABC News account about a wildfire in California’s San Diego County.
Nowhere in the 30-second piece early yesterday afternoon did ABC correspondent Alex Stone mention the location of the blaze that caused evacuations and “at least 20 homes are gone, burned to the ground.”
His report opened with “San Diego County.” But that’s as far as it went in pinpointing the location.
San Diego County, in the southwest corner of California, is the state’s second most populous with 3.1 million residents. Major cities are San Diego, Chula Vista and Oceanside.
The county, spanning 4,525 square miles, extends from the Mexican border to Orange County.
Only clue in the ABC radio report was that the fire was in a rural location stemming from a short quote from an evacuating resident who said he “loaded up the horses.”
The lack of pinpointing continued today with a noon on-the-hour ABC News radio report noting only that the fire was "in San Diego County."
Meanwhile, U-T San Diego, said the fire, which started early Sunday afternoon, was near the Campo Indian Reservation in eastern San Diego County. Campo is near the Mexican border.
Officials yesterday said the fire had burned 2,000 acres and 80 homes continued to be threatened.
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