Washington, DC Earthquake 2011: Media Reacts On Twitter (PHOTOS)

The earthquake that hit Washington, D.C. on Tuesday quickly supplanted all other news stories. Every network and news outlet on the East Coast moved to wall-to-wall coverage of the 5.8 magnitude quake. Media figures across the country also started weighing in on the tremor. Below, see a very small, unrepresentative sample of what some media figures tweeted to the world when the quake hit.

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@DailyIntel
Daily Intel

Did you hear? We just had an earthquake http://t.co/iDElEeT

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Comments

[banker67]

09:02 PM on 08/28/2011

The for-profit media won't talk about why we are fighting two or three undeclared wars simultaneously in countries that never attacked us, suffer massive financial scandals and somehow can't get a loan even when Fed money is free to the banks.

So they cover a minor quake.

No danger of losing far-right advertising bucks when it's about plate tectonics, no horde of lawyers demanding equal time.

It's highly profitable, risk-free and can be spun as noble public service.

Just one question: Did anyone ask if there was fracking going on in the hills of Virginia?

Well, which company would come forward and admit it?
Me neither.

[MikeyJaii]

06:31 PM on 08/27/2011

Hype. All hype.

[johnsopinion]

07:26 PM on 08/26/2011

The media goes nuts? Not at all unusual.
Following is a headline from the Associated Press that has recently appeared on YAHOO News:

"After Apple's fall, is it time to buy or sell?
AP By BERNARD CONDON - AP Business Writer | AP – 3 hrs ago"

Do the same people who write news articles/blogs/whatevers, write the headlines?
I hope not.
This headline, "After Apple's fall, is it time to buy or sell?", is a prime example of "the
media" manipulating the news. It presupposes that Apple has crashed and is hoping
the Harvey Team gets there in time.
The sad part is, a lot of people read only headlines and pass on the info in the headlines
as if it is actual fact! Ergo, rumors attain the status of legitimate news which in turn gives
the media something to report on, which fuels more rumors which attains reportable
legitimacy which gives the media something to report on which fuels more...........
This is one the most blatant examples I've seen so far. Whoever wrote this headline should
be pilloried for a month and then run out of the industry and if it happens to be the same
person who wrote the article, so be it.

[RationalRadioJack]

07:08 PM on 08/26/2011

As a gay man, I want to apologize in advance for creating IRENE. It has been a busy week for us with the earthquake and our never ending quest to destroy heterosexual marriage......and oh yeah, that drought.
We named IRENE after Irene Dunn who starred in Pippin in 1972 as well as played the role of Granny on the hit TV series Beverly Hillbillies.
Now, I must get back to sinning and doing poppers.

[Bigrcube]

12:43 PM on 08/26/2011

I shake MORE than that when having sex.

[Bigrcube]

12:39 PM on 08/26/2011

Did you hear, we just had a quake?????? Should that tweet be:
Did you FEEL?! One doesn't HEAR a quake, right?!

[Janet Inkley]

03:18 PM on 08/26/2011

Actually... they do have a little "boom" before the actual quake.

[pphhrogg]

05:27 PM on 08/25/2011

If they think a 5.8 earthquake was so horrible, what would they do with a quake like Japan had?

[Bigrcube]

12:40 PM on 08/26/2011

Duck from the tsunami?

[marignymitch]

12:46 PM on 08/25/2011

We ain't see nothing yet. Irene will be the end of the world as we know it, if the media is to be believed.

[pphhrogg]

05:28 PM on 08/25/2011

Can't you just picture all the fundies preparing for the "rapture" because of normal weather and geological happenings?

[EIZEL]

12:25 PM on 08/25/2011

Keep drilling and fracking baby..., you need a job boy, don't ya..., so keep drilling and fracking and burning oil. And don't ya worry about them quakes, poisoned water courses, or chocking on air!!!

[peanut]

09:31 PM on 08/24/2011

Doesn't today's media overreact to everything? They think they are doing all of us a service when in fact, they are also part of the problem with the mess all around us. I used to be a news junkie...now, I would rather "READ" the news online than listen to some of these blowhards on TV.

[Momcatusa]

02:09 PM on 08/24/2011

Okay, just a nitpick here. The earthquake didn't HIT Washington, DC. It HIT Louisa County, VA, a little south of Route 33 west, about halfway between Cuckoo and Louisa, VA. The media keeps saying it was centered on Mineral, which is farther away (and to the NE) than Cuckoo is. If you draw a line from the NE anchored in Mineral to the SW, anchored in Louisa, the quake was centered in the rolling land roughly in the middle. It was FELT from Charleston, SC to Hartford CT, and probably beyond.

It was a lot worse in the cities to the north because of the amount of rigid high-rise construction there - those buildings don't have the built-in "give" of those in California. Here in Richmond it was a rather vigorous shaking for 25-30 seconds, and some minor damage occurred, mostly on older buildings, although taller buildings were evacuated and are being examined by engineers for structural damage today.

It was exciting, but I'm more worried about Hurricane Irene at the moment. I mean blimey, who schedules this stuff? Do we HAVE to have both in the same week, for cryin' out loud?!!

[ltague]

01:40 PM on 08/24/2011

Somebody PLEASE tell me why one of the "interchangeable blonde anchors" kept telling everyone that the Washington Monument had actually MOVED ??!! I have watched every news channel as wel as the Weather Channel since last evening & these Faux News du@b as dirt anchors just LOVE to make stuff up. Do they actually think it's some kind of State secret or conspiracy to not tell us if it's actually true? What is WRONG with Faux "news" & their blondes?!

[jackiwhitford]

06:08 PM on 08/24/2011

Some idiot took a tilted photo of the monument and from there media picked up on it without verifying that it had not moved. It was not till the end of the day that people realized it was a hoax.

[ltague]

11:12 PM on 08/24/2011

Thank you for the answer. I stopped watching the Faux news byte by "blondie # whatever" after last night, but have been watching all the other stations, local & network, as well as the Weather Channel all day (news channels to see how things were going with the Libyan rebels & hostage reporters) but all of them reported on the Washington Monument & only said helicopter fly-bys saw some cracks; NOTHING ELSE. I never heard any other media say it had moved, but I was channel-hopping.

[Aaron Peeples]

01:03 PM on 08/24/2011

Of course the media went nuts. They were pretty much not needed at all, what with all the social networking, so they had to shout above it all. I felt it, I confirmed it with friends on Facebook (and strangers on Twitter), and that was it. I didn't even think of turning on the news until 30 minutes later, and even then they were babbling about how this earthquake wouldn't cause a tsunami (Thanks, Andrea Mitchell. We couldn't have figured that one out without you).

I think it's starting to dawn on the media that we're actually capable of doing their job for them. Have you noticed how much more frequently they solicit stories from their viewers/readers?

[Avidbuff]

12:40 PM on 08/24/2011

FYI... 1300+ earthquakes on this scale a year.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/eqstats.php

[EF3]

12:12 PM on 08/24/2011

It;s a shame The Daily Show is on a two week hiaitus. Because Jon Stewart would have been all over the media's freak out over this.