Aussie Paper Writes Delightfully Polite Takedown of Television Weather
Anthea Cannon, a writer for the Geelong Advertiser — a newspaper for the eponymous city of 200,000 on Australia's southeastern coast — wrote an incredibly polite takedown of television weather yesterday after she encountered a rude broadcast meteorologist from her local news station.
But the TV's new weather girl advertisements are turning me inside out like an errant umbrella. Apparently, because she reads the weather, lots of people ask her what the forecast will be tomorrow. Rudely, she'll tell them to watch the news at 6pm.
Luckily for these rebuffed friends and passers-by, we weather watchers have never needed the nightly bulletin less.
The piece goes on to say how the internet is quickly rendering the weather segment of the nightly news meaningless. Aside from the fact that television weather broadcasts save lives during major severe weather events, Cannon is right overall — people don't really need to watch TV for weather forecasts anymore.
Broadcast meteorologists have to be experts in public relations simply due to the nature of their jobs, and they can easily get into trouble if they cross the line or say/post something that rubs viewers the wrong way.
Earlier this afternoon, for instance, I had a conversation with a broadcast meteorologist who took issue with my use of the word "shitload" in the headline of a previous post on The Vane today, saying that he couldn't share it because of the foul language in the headline.
Stuff like that is completely understandable. Television meteorologists have to censor themselves, because not only could offending the wrong person cost them their jobs, but people can tune them out completely with the vast amount of weather resources available on the internet.
The broader lesson here is to always try to be nice and be careful what you say.
