Redstate

By Bitsko Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Last October in the wake of Katrina, I wrote a piece that lampooned weather coverage in the 24/7 news age. In it, I imagined a scenario in which every weather event, no matter how minor, would be treated like the aftermath of nuclear war.

I thought I was being funny.

I thought I was writing satire.

I thought it would take years of eroding journalistic standards to achieve the level of buffoonery I envisioned as the future of news in America. But no, it didn’t take years.

This past week I watched what I had offered up as satire being enacted on TV in real-time—by supposedly real journalists. As Tropical Storm Ernesto soporifically crawled its way up through the Caribbean towards Florida - losing power like a Yugo with a bad oil leak and a shot clutch going uphill while pulling a U-Haul trailer full of bricks – network television reporters in the U.S. stood on street-corners in south Florida warning us (a tad too expectantly) of the imminent arrival of a killer storm.

Yes indeed, Death (aka “Ernesto”) was coming. The early reports anticipated that Death would arrive, metaphorically speaking, driving a black monster-truck with spike-studded tires, spouting flames from twin smokestacks while demons hurled lightning bolts from the top of the cab.

A day later when (barely) Tropical Storm-strength Ernesto finally pulled into town, putt-putting like a lawnmower engine-powered clown-car, the TV-news bozos simply piled out and headed for the nearest tent-flap. All in all, it was a mildly amusing performance as media circuses go.

However, as journalism goes, this was pathetic. The desire among the various networks for a killer hurricane - striking in time to coincide with the week-long orgy of Katrina anniversary programming - was palpable. Moreover, there seemed to be an emotional investment in propping up earlier predictions of a disastrous hurricane season.

In the wake of Katrina, a number of politicians, scientists, and garden variety “expert” fear-mongers built up a doom-and-gloom scenario which tied an increase in killer storms firmly to the global warming wagon. Many in the media jumped on board as happily as they had with the predictions of a “new Ice Age” twenty-five years ago.

This is not to argue against global warming. I merely point out; making predictions based on the idea that short-term anomalies are indicators of long-term trends is a dicey proposition.

In any case, there seems to be an actual fear in some circles that this hurricane season will be a bust. Most of the rest of us would consider that a good thing. But we don’t make a living having to fill twenty-four hours a day with compelling images and stories. It’s hard to get good pictures of devastation from hurricanes that don’t happen. It’s hard to fill airtime with interviews of people whose homes weren’t destroyed.

The same mindset also applies to lesser weather phenomena. During the two months I spent this summer in Washington, D.C., there was a long run of hot, humid, miserable weather. Having lived there on and off for the past thirty years I would have to say this was par for the course, although a tourist watching the local news might have assumed otherwise.

Often, the heat was the lead story. During a short run of consecutive hundred-degree days in July (not at all unusual in my experience), the term “Heat Event” was actually used.

Think about it: it’s not just hot out there folks, it’s a HEAT EVENT—which in terms of scary language is just a shade less intimidating than the term “Extinction-Level Event.” Of course, if the audience happens to link the two ideas together, so much the better for the ratings.

In that spirit, I offer the following forecast: We’re all going to die.

Eventually.

You may now proceed with hysterical screaming.