General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAny news channel without some fool broadcasting in the wind and rain?
Literally insane. MSNBC, CNN, FOX, Weather Channel, everything streaming I find, some damn fool with a mic is standing in the storm talking about how stormy it is. When did this become a good idea? Especially when the whole point is to evacuate or hunker down, avoid flying objects and other nasty elements. Broadcasting exactly what we shouldn't be doing. I'd rather an indoor meteorologist showing me some good radar maps and projections, not watch some idiot getting pelted by wind and water and saying nothing.
MerryBlooms
(11,770 posts)DrDan
(20,411 posts)TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)I hope this is the video of Rather in the storm. I can't watch videos.
Rhiannon12866
(205,481 posts)He was broadcasting from the studio in his shirtsleeves, consulting with the weather experts interpreting radar and maps. There was some pretty harrowing storm footage, however, showing rescues, the high water and wind and some cool classic cars trying to maneuver in the flooded streets. Apparently cameramen did risk life and limb getting that footage. They said this was the first "public service" broadcast of its kind and they won awards for it, very cool even though Dan Rather never got wet.
TexasProgresive
(12,157 posts)Something I have noticed as I have aged that memories sometimes meld together, however I ran across this piece:
sinip;
And so, when Carla approached the Texas coast, Rather stood before a camera in the wind and rain on Galveston Island among the copperheads and rattlesnakes that slithered for the ridge, and broadcast for some 70 hours, locally and nationally.
It is a cliche now, the TV correspondent throwing caution and hairspray to the wind to report from the heart of an approaching storm. But in 1961 viewers had never seen anything like it. When the storm had passed, 46 people were dead, a smaller number than the experts had expected partly due, they concluded, to the TV coverage. Rather was on his way to becoming a star. CBS hired him the following year.
snip:
You cant pretend to know what youre talking about, Rather said, if you spend all your time in a windowless office on the Upper West Side of Manhattan . The goal is to cover news. A big hurricane, coming in at daylight, a chance to show people what its like, thats news.
http://keithob.com/stories/the-old-man-and-the-storm
edit: If Dan didn't begin reporting out in the wind and fury of Carla he did it in other storms paving the way for all the scenes we get, including tornado chasers.
Marthe48
(16,975 posts)I was going to try to get an update on the Weather Channel, but Bettes and the desk person are yelling at each other, and I can't understand what they're saying. Big fail. So I am watching a show about Yellowstone Park.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)Wind and rain will have to do.
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)elias7
(4,007 posts)Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)Blue_Adept
(6,399 posts)malaise
(269,054 posts)DFW
(54,405 posts)But that could still change, I guess.
OnDoutside
(19,962 posts)elias7
(4,007 posts)cilla4progress
(24,736 posts)I believe it's testosterone poisoning. Is this really necessary? When one of them gets seriously hurt or killed this will be the last time for this type of broadcasting.
I'm sure the media companies told them to use their own judgment. I wonder what OSHA has to say about this?
Yet, I'm watching...
Doreen
(11,686 posts)but there is this scene where a reporter is outside reporting the four tornadoes he get slammed by a big piece of metal. I remember thinking what a stupid idiot just before he got wiped out. I now think of that when I see these reporters out in the hurricane.
lsewpershad
(2,620 posts)To be blown away and so become the most watched segment evah.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)csziggy
(34,136 posts)Frankly as we're sitting here in North Florida waiting for the storm to hit us in the early morning hours tonight, some of this is comic relief. Watchig poor Mike Bettis getting slammed around, and then spreading his arms in triumph at surviving the first eye wall is amusing for those of us who will NOT be out in those damn winds.
elias7
(4,007 posts)One of these guys said, "I'm going to stop talking now, so you can listen to this storm", as if you couldn't hear the constant crackling of the wind obscuring his voice, and proceeded to hold the mic out in the wind. Unbelievable. It's like Trump has made us all idiots...
csziggy
(34,136 posts)I think Brian Williams' fascination with the wind forced Mike Bettis to spend far longer out in the wind than needed.
I've mostly had the TV on MSNBC but we've been working and not watching regularly. Irma is supposed to get here early in the morning and we are finalizing our preparations.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)Last edited Sun Sep 10, 2017, 11:25 PM - Edit history (1)
That fool is going to get killed from flying debris one of these days.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)Yeah, I am a weather junkie - had to be with living in Florida and running a farm.
madaboutharry
(40,212 posts)Williams had nothing to do with Bettie being out there. I don't get it either. Frankly, after a couple of hours of seeing these people outside it became uncomfortable watching them. They were clearly miserable and suffering.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)Just in different cities!
Something hit the window and woke me up so I turned over to the weather channel to get updates. There was a woman standing in downtown Tallahassee in light rain. Then a man standing at a sea wall in Jacksonville with heavier rain and wind talking about the water overtopping the sea wall. But nothing precise about where the center of circulation was for several minutes - long enough for me to boot my computer and call up a site with radar.
Right now it looks as though the center of circulation is somewhere around Wildwood where the Florida Turnpike goes into I-75. Tallahassee is getting steady winds from the north at 20 mph, gusts to 36 - though the wind here sounds like more.
DesertRat
(27,995 posts)Response to DesertRat (Reply #16)
elias7 This message was self-deleted by its author.
chillfactor
(7,576 posts)change the damn channel....that is what the remote is for..maybe you would be more sympathetic if you were one caught in this hurricane.....I am sick and tired of people like you complaining about the hurricane covarage...get a life already!
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)Anchorman 2 satirized this point -- well I guess they are fools since they sent Baxter out there in the storm in the film.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)...of seeing a field reporter carried away by the wind to her or his death.
TexasBushwhacker
(20,202 posts)Cuz nothing says FUN like a natural disaster!
Link to tweet
To his credit, Al has been ripping Rush Limbaugh about the whole "Irma is a hoax" bullshit.
Orrex
(63,215 posts)I've seen at least three OPs about it, along with a number of complaints about it in other threads.
Out of courtesy to the OPs, I've made A Serious Effort to see this as a big deal, and it just isn't.
To everyone who can't tolerate the sight of a reporter in the rain, here is my suggestion: grasp your remote firmly and change the channel.