David Spates "Therefore I Am" Published Sept. 23, 2003

Hurricane drama blows

A scarecrow dressed in a Weather Channel raincoat would have done just as well. That's all I could think of as I watched reporter after reporter after reporter get battered around by Hurricane Isabel during live television broadcasts.

I'm one of the first people to defend "the media." After all, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, I am part of "the media," but television news gets on my last good nerve. All too often, the information content plays second banana to flashy, attention-getting video.

There's absolutely no reason that every television station east of the Mississippi had to send a reporter and camera crew to the shores of Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland. So why did they do it? Flashy video, that's why. A reporter barking into a microphone as he braces against hurricane-caliber winds makes for some pretty dramatic video, I'll grant you, but what does it actually tell us? We learn that hurricane winds sure are strong, the surf is rough, and the rain is falling -- everything we could have gotten from a meteorologist sitting behind computer monitor plugged into a Doppler 5000EZ weather radar unit. In this case, the on-the-spot reporter is nothing more than window dressing.

So what's wrong with a little window dressing, you say? Nothing, of course, until it gets someone killed. Most of the Isabel reporters were broadcasting from towns under mandatory evacuation orders. If conditions are dangerous enough to warrant a mandatory evacuation, then they're too dangerous to permit a live broadcast. The meteorological powers-that-be determined that the those seashore towns were too dangerous to inhabit, and yet that's exactly where TV news producers sent their reporters.

Decisions like that have nothing to do with obtaining valuable information. The information was already obtained, hence the mandatory evacuation. The only reason you send a TV news crew to Kill Devil Hills, NC, during a hurricane is for the ratings-grabbing drama -- the reporter standing in front of the ocean, his raincoat flapping madly, the sea spray stinging his eyes, the ocean swell seemingly set to gobble him up at any moment. It's all about the shot. The information isn't enough anymore. People want the drama.

Some of this nonsense can be blamed on technology. Live broadcasts are easier and cheaper today, and with literally hundreds of channels at viewers' fingertips, it's tougher for news programs to stand out among the competition. The Weather Channel competes with NBC, which competes with FOX News, which competes with ABC, which competes with, well, you get the point.

The days of rabbit ears and three networks are gone. It's a dog-eat-dog, reality-TV world out there, and watching a reporter get beaten up by a hurricane provides entertainment value. A news anchor sitting behind a desk? That's so ... Walter Cronkite. Boooooring! Flip the channel. Stop! There's Al Roker getting blown around by the hurricane. Let's see if anything bad happens to him. I'll bet he wishes he had some of those pounds back!

I'm marking this column for future reference. This will be one of those "I told you so" efforts.

If TV producers keep sending camera crews and reporters into the eye of the storm, someone will get killed, maybe even during a live shot. Bank on it. The wind will blow a reporter into the surf, a piece of debris will tear through a cameraman's head, a palm tree will crush a news van -- whatever. And then, after it happens, "the media" will do stories about the dangers of live news coverage and whether it's warranted in life-threatening situations. Comparisons will be drawn to live coverage of war, memorials will be held, and we'll hear TV reporters trumpeting their bravado with statements like, "Covering the news can be dangerous, but that's my job."

Fine. I'll be sure to pass that along to your widow and fatherless children at your funeral. It will be a great comfort to them. Daddy died for the live satellite feed.

Incidentally, I was in the hurricane, too, kind of. The wife and I went to the Virginia Tech football game on Thursday and sat through a windy, rainy, soaking win. The only danger there, however, was that the defense wouldn't contain the Aggies' speedy QB Reggie McNeal in the second half -- a risk we were willing to take. It did, and I returned home with a sniffle and soggy shoes.

Maybe we in "the media" have a screw loose.

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David Spates is a Knoxville resident and Crossville Chronicle contributor whose column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at davespates@chartertn.net.