What’s More Important – Chasing Hoax's Origins Or Perfecting Information Flow to the Public?

Civil Defense officials apparently spent much of their time yesterday investigating the origins of Sunday's earthquake hoax.

Before they get too far down the track with this effort, we have to ask: Will knowing the origins prevent another hoax? CHORE believes it’s more important to know why the hoax couldn’t be knocked down before it spread unchecked.

We learned in yesterday’s news reports that Civil Defense initiated “crawls” on some television programming Sunday evening (but not all programming and not on all stations) to address the hoax.

TV crawls can reach some of the public, but they have obvious limitations; they’re here one moment and gone the next, perhaps not to return for half an hour or more. And then there’s the problem of having to be in front of a TV set to see a crawl. If you’re heading off to fill your car’s gas tank because you think a tsunami's coming, no television crawl will reach you.

Maximizing the Message

So far, we’ve heard nothing about whether Civil Defense launched a radio effort to counteract the hoax. The dozens of radio stations on Oahu represent a tremendous communications resource for Civil Defense. Focusing on a handful of them would reach a good chunk of the listening audience at any given time.

Once those listeners have heard the message, they can use their own communication networks to tell others what’s happening. Cell phones spread rumors, and they can knock them down, too.

Because the radio option has gone unreported, CHORE wonders whether Civil Defense officials actually did activate it, and we welcome any information they wish to offer to clarify the point.

We also hope they'll spend less time sleuthing the hoax and instead figure out how to respond as effectively as possible to the next emergency – real or imagined.