What is it about hot weather stories? Newspapers. TV. We all love them. Readers do, too. Most of our time in the newspaper business is spent trying to uncover things, to tell readers things they don’t know, such as the great Iguana caper of 2007.
But weather? That’s a whole different shade of sunscreen. Headline: It’s hot. Story: It’s hot. And here’s how hot it was, is, and is likely to be. One of the interesting things about how newspapers cover the weather has been a subtle change in recent years. It used to be that except for major weather events, such as hurricanes, newspapers ceded the weather to electronic media, i.e. TV and radio. The idea was that by the time we printed the paper and said it had snowed, the snow had melted, the rain had stopped, etc. But it turns out that readers thought a lot differently about this information. They wanted weather stories, to complement and supplement their info elsewhere.
So what’s the appeal of weather stories? I think it’s this. The weather is universal. It’s hot everywhere. Or it’s snowing everywhere around the city or region. In this day and age when we are segmented, fragmented and cemented (to our couches), the weather is a true community event.
Consolidation: I talked the other day about consolidation of printing presses. That’s not the only place it’s happening. The Associated Press offices in North and South Carolina will now fall under one bureau chief, Sue Wilson, who is the NC bureau chief. AP is owned by the publications and broadcasters who use it, but it hasn’t been immune to the financial pressures on other info providers in the fast-paced 24-hr news world. They do a good job, but their franchise has been eroded in recent years. Sue is a good newsperson, and will do a good job in this expanded role. She said (jokingly) about the BBQ in the other Carolina “It’s different.” A true politician.
GOING DARK (or is it just dim): OTTERBLOG will be largely inactive for about 10 or so days, as I pursue a little R&R. We’ll see you all on the other side. Take care. Stay cool.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
One of my finest moments as a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal was being assigned a weather story. Record heat. My response, to a bemused city editor: “The only reason it’s a record is because it’s never been this hot before.” Honestly, it made sense in my head at the time. And occasionally does, still.
Now I live in Phoenix, where the weather report can, for most of the year, be reliably described as: hot, or hotter. Yet weather forecasts take up an inordinate amount of time on local newscasts. Go figure. Maybe there’s comfort in numbers. Whatever the case, people are into the weather.
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