Some believe Hurricane Irene was sensationalized, overblown by the news media

There's no denying it: Hurricane Irene was a tragedy. In the storm that struck the East Coast over the weekend, at least 40 people lost their lives and estimates about the storm's cost have been put in the billions of dollars.

Despite the deaths and destruction, was the hype around the hurricane sensationalized? Some people certainly think so.

Charlie Spierling, a staff writer for The Washington Examiner , asserted that the storm was overblown by the media. He wrote that the media deserve criticism because "news anchors and reporters seemed to defy … reports [of a weakening storm] in order to justify their initial over-reaction."

Howard Kurtz, a contributor to the Daily Beast , decried the hurricane hype that whipped up the media and local officials.

"Someone has to say it," he wrote. "Cable news was utterly swept away by the notion that Irene would turn out to be Armageddon."

Kurtz also noted that the hype around the storm likely stemmed from the fact that most of the nation's top-ranking news outlets are based in New York, along the storm's projected path.

No matter what caused the perceived overreaction, Spierling and Kurtz aren't alone in their interpretations. According to a Media Bistro poll at TVNewser.com, a majority of people – more than 39 percent of responders – indicated they thought that "the media coverage was over-the-top and only driven by a desire for ratings."

Another 29 percent of those who responded said they felt that the coverage of Hurricane Irene was appropriate, as "the media has a responsibility to prepare viewers for the worst. "

No matter what side of the fence you're on about this issue, Daily Beast reader liebowriter summed up many people's feelings about the media coverage with the following comment: "You just can't win. It's overhyped! People were forced to be prepared!!! And if the media downplayed it and people were caught off guard, we'd be reading articles about how the media dropped the ball and they should have known better in a post-Katrina world. Was it really so bad to tell people in danger of being flooded out to go somewhere safe?"