Yet there are about 4000 places in the CONUS where the tap water is even more bad than in Flint. Which just happened to have a known speaker, who produced a documentary about it. Thinking about it, the study didn't even account for the crap that fracking can do. So it should be even more.
I wonder to what extent Michael Moore's Flint pedigree influenced the media.
I'm guessing it's decidedly non-zero.
Edit: this was not intended as a dig at Michael Moore or anyone else. The fact that he made a documentary featuring Flint means that more people than otherwise should be are aware of the place, hence, media stories about it are more likely to gain traction with the general population. Michael Moore humanized Flint. His making it recognizeable, I think, aided in the rise of this particular story, IMO.
I also think the name of the city helped its presence in the news cycle. Flint, being short and a homonym for another English word is far more memorable than say "Scarborough" (which, amusingly, was the first name that came to mind when I tried to come up with the most memorable unmemorable name for a town.)
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Yet there are about 4000 places in the CONUS where the tap water is even more bad than in Flint. Which just happened to have a known speaker, who produced a documentary about it. Thinking about it, the study didn't even account for the crap that fracking can do. So it should be even more.
I wonder to what extent Michael Moore's Flint pedigree influenced the media.
I'm guessing it's decidedly non-zero.
Edit: this was not intended as a dig at Michael Moore or anyone else. The fact that he made a documentary featuring Flint means that more people than otherwise should be are aware of the place, hence, media stories about it are more likely to gain traction with the general population. Michael Moore humanized Flint. His making it recognizeable, I think, aided in the rise of this particular story, IMO.
I also think the name of the city helped its presence in the news cycle. Flint, being short and a homonym for another English word is far more memorable than say "Scarborough" (which, amusingly, was the first name that came to mind when I tried to come up with the most memorable unmemorable name for a town.)