Hysterical Weather Coverage

[Stanley Kritzik]

Sunday morning, as the area "recovered" from four-to-six inches of fluffy light snow, the local networks swung into action with "storm of the decade" coverage.

All three carried an hour of morning coverage, pre-empting, for example, NBC's Weekend Today show.  They all had these photo ops, with reporters standing outside, wading ankle-deep in snow.  Now, I know (and saw) during the storm, a few cars in the ditches, spun off of the highway, etc., but by 7:00 AM, it really was all over.  

I have a theory as to why they do it.  Some 25-or so years ago, the weather prophets missed a big storm, and were roundly criticized for it.  Since no one yells when they over-report a storm, or an on-coming one, that's exactly what they do.

But, it is kind of wimpy to go crazy about some pretty normal Wisconsin winter weather, and it unfortunately matches the tendancy of the all the news media to over do it on the "cause du jour" and then drop it.  Today, news reporting is show business, and the weather prophets are bad, but not much worse than their news colleagues -- especially the locals plus CNN, MSNBC, etc.

There -- having vented, I feel much better.

Stan Kritzik