Originally Posted By: Nomad

I found that a radio helped a lot. I needed information from "outside" about what/where things were happening. At first I thought the radio would draw attention, but nobody seemed to notice.
Look for a local news station. Much is just created by someone far away and it will do you no good. Community radio stations are useful.


One of the biggest down sides to media consolidation is that most major radio and TV outlets are non-local. Most are not even regional. The majority are essentially national with news coming from a central news source office that feeds hundreds of stations. Those are pretty useless for finding out what is going on locally.

Back in the day there were several local radio stations that each had their own news desk, several crews, and a dozen or more stringers, out hunting down local and regional stories. And everyone wanted to get their own angle and insights so you could scan two or three stations and get a pretty good picture of what was going on. Those days are gone and most news outlets just regurgitate the lines from a national news outlet.

If you are careful, have a good antenna and are patient you can sometimes find tiny low-power stations on the quiet end of the AM dial. These are often great sources of information if you can find them.

I have rural friends who listen in on the local low-power station because it tells you pretty much what you need to know about what is going on in a community. It gives road conditions on small two-lane county roads, tells when a bridge is out, and keeps a running, blow-by-blow account of rising water, wildfires and, naturally, details on any riots.