Re: Amber Alert & WBZ

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>I'm a little surprised to see that the Boston outlets would allow WBZ a
>jump start on the Amber Alert considering that if and when it is
>activated it will be for a missing child that will turn into a lead
>story.  As I read the specs, and granted Mark Manuellian is chair of the
>committee, the State Police Trooper that will decide these things will
>notify ONLY WBZ to start the ball rolling. I don't know how else it could
>be handled but I do think it gives WBZ an unfair advantage over other
>news organizations in town...

What other news organizations? :-)  Seriously, aside from WBZ and
WBUR (right?), is there any other local-to-Boston radio station that
does more than just rip-and-read (or the modern online equivalent) news
gathering?

As far as Amber Alerts go, though, EAS is the mechanism used to
distribute them, and the "entry points" to the EAS in the Boston
area - the stations which every other station must monitor for an
EAS alert - are WBZ, WBMX, and NOAA weather radio.  So it's gotta
go to one of those three to get out to everyone, and it's pretty
well outside of NOAA's domain...  It'd be a major pain in the
posterior to have every station in the area set up a separate
receiver to monitor a fourth/fifth/etc. station just for Amber
Alerts.

Moreover, my understanding (which may be mistaken) is that the
State Police have a direct connection to WBZ and WBMX for EAS
purposes, which is either automated or goes right to the engineer
on duty.  If so, the news department at either station would have
no advantage over anyone else; they'd get the alert at the same
time as all other stations.

-Shawn Mamros
E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu