Those Wacky TV Reports When It Snows

I'm no expert on the inner workings of the TV broadcast industry. I'm a TV consumer, just like you. When the snow falls, though, I laugh out loud as to how typical winter weather is portrayed by stations in western Washington.

If you live in Washington state, or have access to the major TV stations in Washington state, just watch their reports... You'll see that I'm right!

Every winter, area TV stations send their junior-most reporter to either Snoqualmie Pass (the most-used mountain pass in the state) or some obscure location in Seattle, usually in the middle of the night or early in the morning, to give a "live, exclusive, breaking-news" report on the weather. The news anchors (sitting comfortably in their Seattle studio) try their darndest to ad-lib an intro the report to describe the weather as if the world is coming to an end, and viewers should stay tuned for updates. The video feed cuts to the junior reporter, who either kicks at the snow on the curb or tries to pick up a handful of snow to illustrate visually just how dire the weather is. All this while, the reporter is merely reiterating what that station's weatherperson has been saying all morning long - it's snowing.

I realize TV is a visual media, but it's almost as if those TV stations think their watchers, myself included, can't get it through their heads that there is snow on the ground unless we see someone standing along a roadway with snow falling in the background. In my opinion, the already extensive weather coverage given by TV stations during a storm of any magnitude suffices. To make non-severe weather conditions into a "breaking, exclusive, blah blah blah" news story is a waste of time for all, especially the junior reporter.

I'm starting to think that TV station management puts their junior-most reporters through the "snow story" situations like some sort of frathouse intitiation: "let's give them the crappiest, most ineffecive news situation possible and make them work their hinders off for some air time". Weather is weather, not news, and if it's not a weather-related disaster, it's just weather!