A monster 8.8 magnitude earthquake shook Chile last Friday. After reporting the destruction and chaos throughout the country, the focus shifted to the coastal areas of the Pacific Ocean now threatened by the possibility of a tsunami.Hawaii — an island with a history of tsunami damage — was of particular concern. The island found itself in a strikingly similar situation in 1965 when a 9.5 scale earthquake rattled Chile, setting off a wave that killed 61 people and caused $75 million in damages. This weekend’s situation was thus tailor-made for cable news. Impending national disaster? Check. Idyllic scenery? Check. “Citizen journalists” armed with Twitter accounts? Check.This was going to be a child abduction, hurricane and terrorist attack all rolled into one. A ticking time bomb set to blow. America would get to witness a train wreck — live and in living color.Ultimately the only train wreck was the broadcast.Leading to the final minutes before the first wave was predicted to hit, it was entertaining to see the broadcasters groping for anything to fill up the empty time before the first wave. In all of the excitement from the impending doom — which would be caught on television — there was an utter lack of material to report.One reason they struggled was that, despite having several hours to prepare for the event, many of the cable news channels simply tapped in to the local news stations in Hawaii instead of having their own crews on the ground.When they weren’t piggybacking off the local Hawaiian news channels, viewers were subjected to a deluge of asinine exercises in cable news 101. There were the live         interviews with onlookers via cell phone. There were the grainy videos provided by amateurs with Web cams broadcasting via Skype.Of course, the viewer obtained little information during this time besides that it was a nice day and that onlookers were anxious.Largely absent were tsunami experts, discussing how tsunamis are created and spread across the ocean.As the final hour came and went, nothing happened. The tsunami had officially made landfall with no immediate visible evidence that anything had changed. The event was best described as an abrupt change in the tide, with the largest waves at a mere 3 feet.At the end of the day, the broadcast seemed more like the aftermath of Y2K than the story of the century.Let’s be clear. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center had predicted the waves could reach heights greater than 8 feet. This event serves as evidence that, despite how confident we are at predicting Mother Nature, much of what we know is an inexact science.As Louisiana residents will recall, the 2009 hurricane season was predicted to be one of the strongest in years. In the end, the country experienced one of the mildest seasons on record, with no hurricanes making landfall.So, based on the best information available, the news coverage was certainly warranted, and officials made the right decisions to evacuate individuals.But once the estimated time of arrival had passed — and the first wave had hit — the news channels continued to play up the situation.Whether it was ignorance caused by a lack of resources on the ground or merely an attempt to hold on to a large weekend audience, the cable news channels were slow to do their job — report what was actually happening.The whole saga is an allegory for the inherent flaws of cable news. The No. 1 goal is to fill the airwaves with something — whether or not it is accurate or relevant.Good reporting achieves both accuracy and relevance, something which must be achieved once all the facts are in — and not on live television.Mark Macmurdo is a 22-year-old history and economics senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_mmacmurdo.—-Contact Mark Macmurdo at [email protected]