OK - is there anything sillier and/or more counterproductive

[hedgehog]

than a TV reporter standing on a beach during a hurricane warning us it's unsafe to stand on a beach during a hurricane? (Close second - interviewing the old coot who didn't evacuate and who made out just dandy!)

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. They have been doing that for DECADES

reporter in storm in yellow slickers is as old as I remember...

Yes it is silly... and...

Some of us go... MOTHER NATURE... do your worst at him.

For the record yes, there is something sillier, reporter RUNNING AWAY from the rushing in water.

I take the silliness with the civil defense info though. And I laughed my ass off when local reporter went slipping and sliding... it was SHEER COMEDY.

Now the other is what a call a conter productive human interest story.

[uppityperson]

2. Yes. When they pan out and it is barely windy/wavy and they bluster "but but but it MAY get

really bad here".

[ChandlerJr]

3. You might want to ask Dan Rather. If it wasn't for his doing exactly that

in 1961 he may never have gotten out of Texas.

Rather's career moved to a national level thanks to a terrible tropical storm. In September 1961, Hurricane Carla headed toward the American coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. It hit at full force near Galveston, Texas, and became one of the worst storms ever to reach the U.S. mainland. Rather and his team were the only live television news source broadcasting from Galveston when Carla hit, and he delivered one of his reports by hanging onto a palm tree. Rather also persuaded the director of the local weather-reporting station to let his crew put a television camera in front of the radar screen, which tracked storms from high above Earth's atmosphere. "That day," noted Cartwright, "viewers saw something they had never seen on live television: the image of a four-hundred-mile-wide hurricane superimposed over a map of the Texas Gulf Coast. The coverage spurred a mass evacuation of the coast and probably saved thousands of lives."

Rather's fearless reporting earned the attention of CBS executives in New York City and forever earned him the nickname "Hurricane Dan" among his professional colleagues in the media. Shortly after Hurricane Carla, he was promoted to serve as the network's national news correspondent for its southwestern bureau, which included several southern U.S. states as well as Mexico and Central America.div]



http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ow-Sh/Rather-Dan.html#ixzz1WS92LhB9

[gratuitous]

4. One would hope we've improved reportage in the last 50 years

After all, you can do something "for the first time ever" only once. And for every "Hurricane Dan" in newsroom lore, there's a Scud Stud who turned out to be a dud.

As for the original post, I don't know about silly, but I am sick to death of the post-event interview with survivors in shock where the reporter jams a microphone in front of a person's face and asks, "How do you feel?" They feel like they just survived a hurricane, dammit! Or like their son just got shot by police. Or like their wife just died in a horrific auto collision with a drunk driver. I sincerely hope such tragedy is never visited on my pointy little head, but if it happens, I hope I have the wherewithal to stick that reporter's microphone where it might do some good.

[ChandlerJr]

7. Pretty hard to improve on Cronkite and Rather

Maybe I'm just old, but nobody today could carry their Smith-Corona's.

[Seedersandleechers]

5. Would love to see an old video of that

It's got to be somewhere.

[Kennah]

6. I particularly liked ...

... the reporter, I believe with TWC, who was in NC talking about the flooding, while standing in 6 inches of water.

[hedgehog]

9. Truth to tell, 6" in your kitchen may not be as nasty as 6', but a flood is a flood.

Now - if the storm surge doesn't reach the edge of the beach, it's not too impressive. And practically speaking, the reporter standing in a six inch surf could be knocked off his feet and swept out by that monster wave coming in at random.

[Kennah]

13. This was 6" of water OUTSIDE a home, not inside

[hedgehog]

8. I have to put the public service employees we see driving

around in the background of such reports in the same group. What, just because you're a police officer or fire fighter, you're hurricane proof?

[spanone]

10. maybe after a few of the idiots die on the teevee they will think better...maybe

[hedgehog]

11. I saw a couple reports this weekend that i had to turn off the tv and walk away from.

Snuff films aren't my favorite.

[lsewpershad]

12. Probably never happen

They think we are all boobs who love this kind of crap.