Dollywood evacuates guests from cabins and DreamMore resort as wildfires advance

There were reports that Ober Gatlinburg was destroyed but they just tweeted that the property is fine. We just stayed at the Westgate Resort a couple weeks ago for the Dollywoodnwvent and it's been destroyed. Such a shame, was planning on booking a room there in the spring as it was really nice and the staff were incredible.

Why isn't this national news? Oh yeah, it's not cops abusing their authority.

Prayers for those involved and affected.

Well I just checked the front page of USA Today, CNN and the Washington Post and it was on all of those.

This wasn't just posted to the national news today, hours after the worst of it. But Trump, Castro, and Stein get more ratings and as we all know ratings are more important than actual news.

For the record:

• CNN.com - top story
• ABCNews.com - 2nd
• NBCNews.com - 4th
• CBSNews.com - 4th
• Google - 3rd
• NYT - not on front page
• Washington Post - 3rd-ish
• LA Times - not present

I refuse to allow your facts to change my "opinion" on things which can be verified.

I was looking at the major news sites and the fact is it wasn't reported on until around 11am this morning. The reality was that it was happening with 500 acres burning yesterday. But none of the major news sites were reporting it yesterday.

Why did they wait to start reporting it today when it was a major problem yesterday? I could barely find any updated info this morning when I woke up, and when Cnn posted their first story, it was then down and changed within 15 minutes of posting it because they were reporting incorrect info from twitter. They couldn't even be bothered with facts.

You answered your own question: "because they were reporting incorrect info from twitter."

When a disaster or other emergency is unfolding, there's rarely a good source of reliable, up-to-date information; news services have to piece together disparate bits of information from emergency responders and unsubstantiated first-person reports, both of which often contradict each other and change frequently. National news sites tend to favor complete articles that describe an event after-the-fact instead of chronicling an event that is in the process of unfolding.

If you want live updates about events, you're better off checking the local news or news aggregators like BreakingNews.com that were reporting about the fires as they progressed. Just as you said yourself, many of the bulletins were misleading or incorrect, not a result of malice but simply because it takes time for emergency responders to get a grasp on a situation that's rapidly evolving across a large area. Because the national media isn't concerned with keeping locals abreast of a situation, they tend to wait until things have calmed down before reporting on what exactly went down.

It should also be noted that most newsrooms are probably running with skeleton crews overnight, leaving them unprepared to document an event that sprang up so suddenly.

I hope Lightning Rod doesn't catch fire. #theridethatwouldntopen

What I said was that there was absolutely no mention of it (there was plenty of factual information available last nite) until late this morning. And at that point what CNN was reporting was incorrect information based on tweets instead of the information that was available when you actually searched for it. And for the record, this didn't spring up last nite, the fire grew massively from Sunday at about 50 acres, to Monday at over 500 acres. Not until Tuesday did any of the big news sites start running with it.

Do you really think that it wasn't about ratings that caused them to post more info about a contentious political figure or the death of Castro that was behind that? Major networks stopped reporting relevant news a long time ago in favor of ratings.

ApolloAndy said:
I refuse to allow your facts to change my "opinion" on things which can be verified.

So you've met my mother.

I'm not a huge news watcher but I was surprised that there wasn't more reporting of the fires other than "there are fires" on the news I did see. I knew Gatlinburg was going to be in deep doo doo because I follow a facebook page run by someone who lives there. So basically I was informed only because I like to look at silly memes and pretty pictures from Appalachia. Sad really...

Tekwardo said:

I was looking at the major news sites and the fact is it wasn't reported on until around 11am this morning. The reality was that it was happening with 500 acres burning yesterday. But none of the major news sites were reporting it yesterday.

To be fair, I'm not sure it was as newsworthy at that point relative to other stories. To me it might have been because of the proximity to Dollywood, but at that point it wasn't clear what the extent of destruction was, or if there were any deaths or injuries. Meanwhile, a Brazilian soccer team died in a plane crash, the president-elect was saying silly things (likely to distract from real issues like his business ownership or lawsuits), the OSU assault was getting more detailed... it just wasn't time. By late last night, it was among the top three stories everywhere.

It's better to get the news right than get it first.

Yeah. I'm not really sure what people are expecting here. The only reason the fire is getting coverage here on Cbuzz is because of its proximity to Dollywood and other area attractions. Otherwise it seemed to be a top tier story for most of the day yesterday and this morning on the national news outlet and meanwhile, as Jeff's pointed out, there are a lot of other hot stories in the news right now as well.

Forest fires happen a lot in the US, the coverage of this one doesn't seem unusual to me in either direction. I'm not sure why it would.

I think the fact that this is the largest one in a century kinda makes it newsworthy, but I guess that's just me. What isn't news worthy is every time Trump tweets anymore.

I guess that I just don't get why the president elect tweeting gets top billing when actual news that affects people doesn't get national coverage for several days. But let trump tweet at two am or say something negative about CNN and it's front and center for a few days.

And that plane crash was no where near the top of the news feed on these sites either till much later. Trump Tweets? Full page Story. We already know he's an idiot that tweets racist, sexist, and anti free speech rhetoric. That story isn't changing so no need to give it top billing.

I think the press is finally feeling that out. They're realizing that even during the campaign they focused too much on 140 characters at the expense of actual, bigger news like lawsuits, conflict of interest and sexual assault (you know, all of the things that would disqualify most of us from getting a job at McDonald's).

I think they failed big time during the campaign. Cracked.com, one of my favorite websites, wrote many a great article (I urge everyone to read this one: http://www.cracked.com/blog/dear-white-people-stop-saying-everything-will-be-ok/ and even though it isn't focused on in the article, you can add LGBTQ people if any ethnicity as well) and one was that the press had the ability to demand he release his tax returns. The entire press could have pulled together and refused to cover him at all until he did. But, you know, ratings.

The National media was all over it this morning. The Today Show was live from Gatlinburg. I think it surprised everyone, including the people of the area, largely because the winds picked up out of nowhere (up to 80 mps+) which sent the fire in every direction. I had a relative in Gatlinburg last Thursday and while they could smell smoke (as could people in the Carolinas and other parts of the south) the threat really came about Monday night.

slithernoggin said:

ApolloAndy said:
I refuse to allow your facts to change my "opinion" on things which can be verified.

So you've met my mother.

Sounds more like my ex..........