Quote:
Originally Posted by tld221
Ill openly say I'm out my lane on this one, but why is this news? The house didn't burn down did it? Lives aren't lost, no?
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Right -- no burned houses, no lives lost. However, the condition of the houses as revealed in fire inspections caused resident members to have to move out at an inconvenient time. Not that any time would be really convenient. As I said in my earlier post, "events like this are a sobering reminder to house managers, RM officers, and house corporations -- as well as to current actives in chapters-- to do their best to keep housing up to codes."
I think that events don't necessarily have to be catastrophic to serve as reminders about safety, code compliance, etc.
I also thought that an update about improvements that have been made was reasonable, because it showed positive responses to the inspection reports.
But if the news, the thread or the posts or are deemed too insignificant or irrelevant, the moderator can delete and edit -- that's part of what we have mods for.
Edited to add: If the original question was more like “Why do the local stations / papers consider this news?” I can only guess along these lines:
+ UTK is the flagship public university in TN; lots of alums (Greek or not) are at least moderately interested in what’s happening at their alma mater -- and this happened to involve three houses;
+ UTK is a major employer in Knoxville, so there’s a chance that a good number of readers or viewers have friends, neighbors or family members working there – and “the latest” events around campus are of interest just to be able to keep up with what people are talking about;
+ UTK is an SEC school, and so there may be a little more interest in Greek-related goings-on than there would be in some other parts of the country;
+ there’s a student safety issue involved, and that can be of interest to parents of local / regional college kids living away from home, whether at UTK or at other schools;
+ fire inspection and fire marshal “closure” orders have a bit of a built-in “audience” – landlords, business owners, homeowners, and construction / renovation / repair outfits can be interested in what the fire inspection officials are looking for, and what kinds of enforcement procedures are going on.
So I can see news editors making the judgment that this would be “news” of interest to a decent number of their readers / viewers. Not everyone would agree, of course.
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