A fire in Buffalo

Growing up in Southern Ontario, we received US-based NBC, ABC, CBS on our basic cable. The Buffalo versions. We watched Irv Weinstein, we watched Commander Tom. We quoted: "It's 11:00, do you know where your children are?" as teens, at 11:00.

Thus, if we were watching the American Channel, at 11:00PM, we watched Eyewitness News, and Late Breaking, On your side, and all that stuff. And a patten emerged. It seemed to me that in the 80's, most of Cheektowaga burned to the ground. That's because Buffalo networks led with murders and fires. "Tonight, there was a murder in Lackawanna and a Fire in Cheetowaga." At the time, both of these places were foreign to me. I had no idea where they were, but they have a nice memorable mnemonic.

When Rhona and I started dating, I told her about the prevailing notion that Buffalo's surrounding area burned down. She was skeptical. But asking around, she discovered that more and more people in Southern Ontario shared that view.

For a long time, American networks and news have had the "if it bleeds, it leads" theory. Michael Moore took a look at network news in his documentary "Bowling for Columbine", and determined that American news is scarier than Canadian news. His 'study' might have been flawed, but if he asked people in Southern Ontario, what the perception of Buffalo was, he would have heard that there are a lot of fires and murders. Because those are always the leads, and people remember the leads.

This post isn't meant to be an indictment of the American media. I'm only telling you, anecdotally what I recall about news here in Buffalo. I suspect it's the same all over since the Buffalo networks are merely outposts. And the 'if it bleeds, it leads" theory is prevailing in the US.

Anyway, this post is entirely for this reason. There was a fire in Buffalo yesterday. We even saw it. And took some pictures. And it hardly made the news. That's a good thing. Here are some shots my wife took.