More "bomb scares" in the news today.

It's probably only natural that everyone has more heightened awareness of bomb threats after the bombing at the Boston Marathon. But that heightened awareness doesn't mean that the news media has to be sucked into the sickness that pranksters have.

Today, while in the car for less than fifteen minutes, I heard of two "bomb scares" here in the Los Angeles area while listening to KNX Radio -- the all-news CBS station.

I thought the news media didn't report "bomb scares" because it's not news and reporting bomb scares tends to satisfy the desires of the pranksters and leads to more copycat pranksters.

Especially after a disaster such as what happened at the Boston Marathon the news media should be especially careful not to present "bomb scares" as news. The actual bombing itself can trigger copycats and pranksters. And reporting the "bomb scares" that turn out to be empty boxes and bags does nothing to alleviate the threat and the danger from copycats. If anything, reporting bomb threats only heightens the chances for more copycats.

And quite frankly, I would like to hear other news besides false reports about bomb scares. Is there so little news in Southern California that reporting "non-news" has been deemed important enough to make air?

Stop reporting the bomb threats and the bomb scares and maybe the bomb pranks will go away.

Bomb pranks are costly. They disrupt lives and daily routines, and put our first responders in dangers and take away medical and fire and police personnel from areas where they might really be needed.

And if bomb scares is all the news media has to report on slow days, let them invest in reporters who can find real stories and not package the non-stories.