As the 17-year cicadas begin their emergence and eventual blanketing of the D.C. area, Dave over at DCRTV gives us a preview of how the media will handle the story:
DCRTV hears that WTOP will be airing “Cicada Alerts” every 10 minutes on the 9’s, just after traffic and weather on the 8’s. WMAL has changed its “Where America Comes First” slogan to “Where Cicadas Come First.” Channel 4 has renamed Bob Ryan’s “Storm Center 4” as “Cicada Center 4.” Doug Hill has fine-tuned his “Superdoppler 7” weather radar to focus on the clouds of cicadas and WJLA will run a crawl during programming to advise which neighborhoods are “under attack.” Channel 5’s Holly Morris is preparing a series of reports – “Will Cicadas Kill Our Kids?” Rush Limbaugh will blame the cicada invasion on John Kerry. Channel 9 plans to put Gurvir Dhindsa in a cicada costume, to co-anchor the 6 PM news with Gordon Peterson. Hot 99.5’s Teapot Tim also plans to don a cicada costume – and run up and down the lanes of the Beltway. DC101’s Elliot Segal will describe in graphic detail his sexual relations with a cicada. He’ll get fined by the FCC, but Clear Channel still won’t fire him. And Sinclair-owned Channel 45 will not report on the cicadas in the belief that their presence will harm George W. Bush’s re-election chances…..
