On Snow and TV News

My last blog post was about Monday's snow day for my school district, and how I spent the day at work getting  a backlog of responsibilities taken care of. I also mentioned how, in 21 years in my district, we'd only missed a day of school before Christmas twice before. This Thursday, though, we had our second snow day before Christmas, and that has NEVER happened before in the entire history of my school district (I know because prior to this year I was in charge of the school calendar for the district--making sure that whatever calendar the board passed met state requirements--and I have a binder still in my office with every calendar going back to the start of the district more than 100 years ago).

But I don't want to talk about that today. I want to talk about something I realized Thursday morning.

As I said at the start of this post, Monday I went into work despite the weather and got a lot of work done. Thursday, though, the snow was still coming down hard at rush hour, and I decided that I would just stay home and spend the day with my family, since my kids were off school, too. We had a nice morning. After sleeping in, I made pancakes as we listened to Christmas music, and then we went into the living room with the fireplace roaring and the Christmas tree lights on and watched a Christmas DVD before going outside to play in the snow.

Later, I told my family at lunch, "This has been a FANTASTIC morning, and do you know why?" After they humored me and asked why, I said, "Because we didn't watch the TV news all morning!"

"What's wrong with the TV news?" my daughter asked me.

And I told them. Here's what's wrong with the TV news:* In Cincinnati anyway, whenever there's a big snow storm, every station does exactly the same thing. At the top of the hour, the news anchor gets on and talks about the terrible snow storm and how terrible things are at there, and how if you're wanting to know if your school or activity is closed that you can watch the ticker at the bottom of the screen. Then they'll cut to the weather man standing over at the green screen, and he'll start making predictions about the weather and how much snow there will be. Lately, the weather people have started getting really specific, with an "Hour by Hour forecast," which during a snow storm sounds something like this: "As you look at the Hour by Hour forecast here, you'll see that at 8 AM there'll be snow. That snow will still be coming down at 9 AM, and it will STILL be coming down at 10 AM. By 11 the snow will start to diminish a little, and by noon it will just be flurries."

This is an incredible waste of everyone's time. The forecaster could simply have said, "It's going to snow from now until noon."

But that's not the part that bothers me, though. What bothers me is what comes next. After the forecaster finishes the station will go back to the news anchor, who will take us out to a remote location somewhere in the Tri-state area. Maybe Oak Hills. And there'll be some poor reporter in a parka standing in a parking lot beside a street. He'll say something like, "Well, as you can see, the snow is really coming down out here! The roads are slippery, and it's cold." The camera man will then pan down to the reporter's feet, and the reporter will use the tip of his shoe to move the snow around. "It looks like there's a good 3 or 4 inches of snow out here and there's more coming down, so things are really treacherous out here. If you look over my shoulder..." He'll pause so that the camera man can pan over his shoulder. "...you'll see that traffic is moving really slowly." True to his word, there will be a line of cars moving at 15 or 20 miles per hour. "People are taking it slow, and as long as you do so, I think you'll be able to get around, but it's definitely a tricky drive this morning."

THAT's not the part that bothers me about the news report. Never mind that I could look out my window and get this "breaking news" myself. Maybe some people watching are at work in a basement without any windows. I don't have any problem with the TV news going to a remote reporter to tell us what it's like out there.

What bothers me is that the TV news will then go back to the anchor who will say, "Thanks, Ken. Stay warm out there." And after a sly little chuckle, as if the anchor considers himself the funniest guy in the world, he'll say, "And now we go to Susan on the EAST side of town to see how things are going over there." And so they cut to Susan, who's on a hill somewhere in Over the Rhine. And she'll say pretty much EXACTLY the same thing that Ken in Oak Hills said. Then they'll cut to someone in Northern Kentucky, usually someone on the overpass in Fort Wright or Fort Mitchell (When I used to live beside that overpass in Fort Mitchell I could look out on snowy days and see the news vans all lined up along the side of the road). And guess what? Same story in Northern Kentucky.

News stations, the Cincinnati metro area is NOT that big. The weather in Northern Cincinnati is pretty much the same as the weather in Northern Kentucky as in the West Side as in the East Side. There's no reason to keep showing us the same stuff over and over. The ONLY time that the news stations should be doing this is if there's some gigantic discrepancy.

ANCHOR: Ken, how are the roads in Fort Mitchell?

KEN: They're terrible. People are sliding everywhere. It's ice, ice, and more ice. Everything's nasty.

ANCHOR: Wow. Be careful out there. Let's check with Glen in Miamitown. Glen, any ice out there?

GLEN: Nope. It's a little cloudy, but that's about it. People are out walking their dogs. It's not bad at all.

ANCHOR: Uh, okay. Susan's in Mount Lookout. Susan, how are things there?

SUSAN: We have over a foot of snow, Don. People are having to dig their way out of their homes.

ANCHOR: Wow, Susan. That's scary stuff. And now let's check in with Michael in King's Mill. Michael, how are things up there?

MICHAEL: Great, Don. We're here at the Beach Waterpark where it's 85 degrees and the Beach is having a special "Waterslide with Santa" special where you can come to the park today, swim on the slides, and even play in the wave pool with Santa Claus. Come on out. Half of all admissions benefit the Salvation Army."

Now THAT would be NEWS!

*Wow. That's the longest introduction to something that I've ever written. Everything after this asterisk is what I set out to write about today. I just had a helluva time getting to this point.