Those incidents are unfortunate but part of the risk that comes with the job. They’re not a reason to not cover such events on scene at all.
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Weather Event Reporting
- Thread starter landtuna
- Start date
Those incidents are unfortunate but part of the risk that comes with the job. They’re not a reason to not cover such events on scene at all.
You love putting words in other people's mouths, do you not?
No one is suggesting the weather/storms/hurricanes etc., get less or no coverage. What I and several other people are telling the networks (and individual TV stations if guilty) is that putting your reporters/anchors outside in the middle of a raging storm just to spew what the viewer can already see is stupid, dumb, idiotic but mostly redundant. It detracts immensely from the gravitas that should be hard news.
You don't see reporting from the middle of a massive building fire in progress and there is good reason. The same should apply to the nitwit suits who put their stars (and I use that term very loosely) at personal risk for fake dramatics.
How are you "telling the networks?" Posting on a message board? They don't care.
In case you haven't learned yet, commercial TV is in the entertainment business. You want serious news? That's not the place for it.
BTW the only reason you don't see reporters in the middle of a building fire is the police won't let them in the building. But they get their reporters as close to the fire as the law allows. Same with forest fires. Same with any disaster. Yes it's all about fake dramatics. I'm surprised you've just realized this.
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I can think of a lot of things more entertaining to watch than a young woman getting bashed upside the head and potentially disabled.
I guess these news directors feel that if they actually get one of their people killed on-camera the ratings will go through the roof.
I guess these news directors feel that if they actually get one of their people killed on-camera the ratings will go through the roof.
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No one thinks any such thing. Any more than anyone at ABC was ghoulish enough to wish for harm to come to Bob Woodruff when he was severely injured.
I know reporters who don't need to be assigned to cover storms. I know several who would drive for hours to be on location before the weather broke. They wanted to experience the entire thing, and report on it. If reporting is what you do, you don't need to be told to do it.
You can argue the same thing for Local TV News Staff in North Carolina and South Carolina that did cover Florence but in their case they were in the Flood Zone or in Some cases had to evacuate their own offices due to their workplaces being in the eye of Florence though. But in the Local TV News Staff they have to deal with their own family and neighbors being the victims of Florence in their case.
I've sent letters to all three major networks (I don't consider Fox among those).
According to the networks themselves they are in the serious news business. Or they think they are. Or they used to be. Sure can't tell it from today's newscasts.
And this isn't just a recent observation but it is the latest and perhaps the best illustration of why the "media" isn't taken seriously these days. All three networks have their news divisions separate from their entertainment divisions. There should be a reason for that but apparently that reasoning has gone by the wayside.
Remember that the TV networks are focused even younger than radio: 18-49 is the live or die demo.
Viewers of the traditional networks that have a significant news effort (CBS, NBC, ABC, Univision and Telemundo) are all looking for later Millennials and Gen X viewers only. You and I are of no interest at all.
The days of Huntley & Brinkley or Cronkite are over... and much of the change has to do with technology. Both the immediacy of the Internet and the technical ability to be "right in the middle" of a news event has changed the industry.
When we all watched TV at the time of the Kennedy assasination, we had to wait hours for film to be developed. There were few live shots unless cameras were already at key locations. So newscasts had lots more talking heads, more still photos and lots less live shots, particularly on breaking news.
Your letters to the networks will get a "hey, somebody call 1964 and see if they want this guy back..." response.
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As far as prime time programming, maybe, but not news.
I have to question that, especially with CBS. Why would they have such talking-head stiffs like Jeff Glor and Scott Pelley in Uncle Walter's Chair, unless they still catered their evening newscast to the 50-to-dead demo? They're both deja vu Roger Mudd all over again -- competent journalists, but dull as watching paint dry.
With news being available 24/7 for years (despite the constant political commentary on the cable noise channels), either via online broadcasts, websites, or "old fashioned" cable, the era of the 30 minute broadcast network newscast should have ended 20-25 years ago. But enough folks are still watching (and advertising) to justify their continued existence. But somehow I doubt 20-somethings, or anyone else younger than 50, is bothering with them anymore for the most part.
I agree with this! But it is career-based, not viewer-based.
We can track this back to the early 1960's when Dan Rather reported on a Texas hurricane that made him famous.
From wiki: "In September of 1961 Rather famously covered Hurricane Carla for KHOU-TV, broadcasting from the then National Weather Center in Galveston[10], showing the first radar image of a hurricane on TV. Coverage of Carla put Rather before a national audience, advancing his career within CBS."
To this day, that career elevation model exists, but it doesn't mean as much anymore as everyone is doing it. Back to my original point, Hurricane coverage is completely boring today. Endless hours of bewildered anchors standing on a beach telling everyone to "get out" while they hope to capture something, anything...usually nothing.
Maybe for a few, but for those who live for covering big stories, it's just impulse. Some people work to live, others live to work, if the work they do is meaningful to them. Musicians are like this. They would make music whether they got paid or not. Some reporters are like this. They live, eat, and breathe the news and they seek out certain stories and they cover them. If it leads to career growth, that's great, but it's not always the primary motivation. There are a lot of news reporters slogging away in the trenches and they're not getting paid big money or anchoring network news.
What I find stupid is when they send a reporter to a location at 5 am where nobody is around and do a stand up about an event 5 hours later. Can’t they just do the report from the studio.
Or the always dull snow storm coverage. We know what snow looks like and not to be on the roads. I don’t need the current bread and milk report at the market.
Or the always dull snow storm coverage. We know what snow looks like and not to be on the roads. I don’t need the current bread and milk report at the market.
You can dislike it all you want. There's a reason they do it--it works. It's a visual medium. Appearance makes a difference. It also does you no harm that they're "on scene" long after something has happened.
The sales demo for news is often the same. If it's not, it is principally 25-54. Just look how Advertising Age does their rankers on prime vs. network news: 18-49 for prime, 25-54 for news.
Their model is traditional, but their target is more contemporary. However, the prime TV viewing audience has always been from middle-age and up, so I really don't see anything new here.
Yet the key break-out in any analysis that is focused on time buying uses 18-49 or 25-54.
I agree with this. But if they are out of town, and at a local courthouse where a major trial is going on, maybe they are stationed there. Our metro courthouse is just a few blocks from the TV station that I watch, so reporters could probably just walk back to the station, if need be, for anything.
Yeah, I remember reporters actually reaching down and picking up snow to show us what texture it is! They are aiming at about a fourth grade mentality. If metro calls off schools, I get the day off, too. I know to stay home. There is also a problematic hill near me which I cannot avoid when I go anywhere. So I just use common sense, and stay home whenever it is treacherous.
In other news, “old man yells at cloud.”
It's been sprinkling nearly all day here in Phoenix today and what is likely to be the lead story on the 5 o'clock news? You guessed it!
"It's raining" bellows the reporter shod in a slicker, boots and Cape Cod fisherman's hat while a close up of the ground shows a damp sidewalk incapable of extinguishing a cigarette butt.
"It's raining" bellows the reporter shod in a slicker, boots and Cape Cod fisherman's hat while a close up of the ground shows a damp sidewalk incapable of extinguishing a cigarette butt.
I've heard newfangled TVs have off buttons. 
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