weather reporting in general is overdramatized everywhere these days, i think. here in the bay area they make a huge hairy deal out of it every time it rains; they send reporters out to Pacifica to make a big deal about the completely routine high surf we get with any storm offshore.
my personal theory is that as technology allows us to have more and more control of our environment, weather, being essentially uncontrollable, seems increasingly dangerous and frightening.
and of course the news media blows absolutely everything up way out of proportion. thus, weather panic on the news every night.
I was wondering whether it was the fear that if one station extended their coverage, viewers would figure it had to be important and tune there unless all the other stations followed suit to keep up and hold onto those eyeballs. Which ties into the whole overdramatisation of stuff in general (and I've got a slew of rants and rantlets to write about that) and ratings-based news programing. But hey, maybe we really have gotten more scared of the weather...
(no subject)
my personal theory is that as technology allows us to have more and more control of our environment, weather, being essentially uncontrollable, seems increasingly dangerous and frightening.
and of course the news media blows absolutely everything up way out of proportion. thus, weather panic on the news every night.
(no subject)