I've watched in amazement the Station Fire that is burning in the hills west of Los Angeles.  The national media outlets are coving this thing as if the entire state of California was ablaze.

Granted...at 140,000 acres burned so far, it is a big fire.  And it will take many more acres before it is eventually contained and controlled sometime later this month.  But there have been bigger fires in recent years that didn't get the kind of wall-to-wall coverage this fire is getting.

I can remember working in Denver back in 2002 when the Hayman Fire broke.  That one scorched 138,000 acres and took 133 homes before it was done.  It made the national news...but only with scant coverage.  Some big flames here and there...the obligatory air drop...the yellow nomex clad firefighters working fire lines, faces covered in a robust mix of sweat and soot.

Yesterday, the major networks all had anchors reporting live from the fire.  NBC's Brian Williams, decked out in some kind of Khakis and a what looked to be a shirt from Dickie's, had his sleeves rolled up and was delivering the latest on the scene with the smoke billowing from the hills behind him.

What's the difference between the two?  Why didn't NBC send Brokaw out to Colorado when the Hayden Fire was raging?

In my opinion it has to do with the people making decisions as to what gets covered.

A big fire near L.A....or a blizzard in New York get big treatment from the national media because that is where they are...New York and L.A.

A big fire in Colorado...or a blizzard in Omaha...maybe massive freezing rain storm in Ohio...won't get that kind of wall-to-wall coverage.

Face it.  We are in "flyover" country.  That "news nether land" the big news folks in L.A. and NYC fly over to visit each other.  We aren't as important as those lucky enough to live on either coast.

We're used to it though.  Seems like not much in our neck of the woods really matters unless it involves mass murder...a dying city...or a teacher having "relations" with a student.

I do have to correct myself a little.  The Hayman Fire in Colorado did finally garner some additional media coverage...AFTER it was discovered to have been started by a Forest Service worker who torched a letter from her estranged husband while on patrol looking for illegal fires.

THAT apparently made it sexy enough to cover.