There was, as you have probably heard ad infinitum by now, an explosion near Grand Central Terminal in New York City at 5:56 pm yesterday. All the initial reports on the news networks focused on fear and panic in the streets. No one seemed to question that fear and panic was the appropriate first response. Or that the degree of fear and panic was warranted by the explosion event.

I would like to place my beliefs on record:
• There is no doubt that an explosion of this type would cause some degree of fear and panic anywhere in the world.
• I firmly believe that the degree of fear and panic observed in NYC yesterday was much greater than a similar explosion would have caused in other countries that have suffered terrorist attacks in recent years: Britain, Spain, Egypt, India. Some of these countries — Britain and India, certainly — have even got used to living under the constant threat of terrorist attacks.
• I firmly believe that part of the reason why Americans display more fear and panic at such events than Brits or Indians is the way our government has carefully and cynically stoked our fears these last 6 years or so.
• I firmly believe that part of the reason why New Yorkers displayed more fear and panic yesterday than they might otherwise have done is the way the media carefully and cynically covered the event—playing up the “nobody knows what’s behind this super-spectacular explosion in which we still don’t know how many people may have died, if any” angle as long as they possibly could.

That, by the way, is the definition of responsible reporting. Because they added the “if any” at the end.

Maybe if the networks were allowed to display more sex and violence on TV, they wouldn’t need to stoke and exploit our fears the way they do? After it became clear that terrorist activity had been ruled out, they smoothly moved on to: “But is the air safe to breathe?”. Not without reason, though:

“There was a steam rupture at 5:56 p.m. at East 41st and Lexington,” said Michael S. Clendenin, a Con Edison spokesman. “We’re in the process of isolating the steam rupture right now. We have to isolate the steam from different valves. Once we get that done, we also have to assess any collateral damage to the electric system. We do not have electrical outages at this time. We always assume there’s asbestos in a steampipe, so we are treating these materials set up by the rupture, including piping, as if asbestos were in them. We will be doing testing for asbestos.”

New Yorkers are presumably thinking to themselves: “Effed again, huh? Who should we turn to now, to figure out when the air near the site of the explosion is safe to breathe?”

The EPA doesn’t exactly have much credibility on this matter at this point. Nor, thanks to Rudee, does the city government.

Or maybe Bloomberg doesn’t inherit Rudee’s baggage?