Ratings, people, ratings. If you didn’t watch, they wouldn’t do it.
Plus, they need to be able to say in their promos that they were First on The Scene with Live Coverage. The fact that those in the actual storm won’t be able to see the coverage because their power is out is beside the point.
This is especially true of Hurricane Andrew’s tear through south Florida. There were virutal shanty towns in the suburbs of Miami. Many of these structures did, in fact, fall (trailer homes, as well, IIRC).
Video of the Homestead, Fla area was especially dramatic. But as bad as it was for Homestead, the situation there was that homes of a very specific construction in a very narrow area were damaged. The average suburban home built after WWII can withstand a hurricane with no problem (except roof shingle damage, and perhaps a good-size tree branch knocking off a gutter or breaking a window).
Maybe an enterprising person could make some money of of this phenomena?
Get a station to pay you to build your home out of, say, sugar cubes with a thin layer of stucco over them (to make it look real). The first time it rains, your house will melt, and they can come film you collapsed on your knees in the driveway, screaming, sobbing, and yelling curses to the cruel Gods that have caused your wordly posessions to wash away.
Maybe you could even find some meltable pets, for added pathos?
I’m guessin’ Gloria Vanderbilts.
Ya’ know, Anderson’s a grown boy and no dummy. Who in the hell was the boisterous ninny that kept admonishing everyone to stay back from the flying sheet metal like they couldn’t figure that out for themselves? I’ve never bitch slapped anyone in a hurricane before but he’d have been a reasonable first candidate.
Were something like this to get strategically lodged into the face of either Geraldo or Anderson, I imagine after a quick spike in ratings, their diminished photgenic qualities would lead to a termination of their contracts.
Dan Rather has often annoyed me, but I do have to give him good credit for taking TV journalism out of the box during his career, the hurricane coverage included. It’s normal protocol now for TV news to send a talking head out with an easy satellite feed, but when Rather did it, it was still a nascent art. Putting a man in the field, with comparatively simple equipment (I’d give the cameramen of the time better props than the reporter) was an acheivement. We really take this for granted today.
Haven’t read the thread, but I wanted to say that I’d like to go out to cover a storm. Sounds like fun.
But then, I fly aircraft with wings so unstable they turn round and round.
The rest of your post was very informative, and verified what I suspected, thank you much for posting it. But I just wanted to point out that the dramatic thing about Anderson Cooper’s clip was that the debris that was flying around was pretty clearly deadly (a number of huge pieces of jagged sheet metal traveling at a good clip). I only thought they were relatively safe because they were behind a wall and the danger was somewhat predictable/controllable. I didn’t think it was “safe” like walking in a rainstorm, but it wasn’t exactly an embedded reporter in a firefight, either.
You’ll be happy to know that Jon Stewart dealt with this issue on tonight’s Daily Show.
The funniest part, i think, was when they showed images of Geraldo Rivera reporting on the hurricane. Stewart asked plaintively: “Where are the large pieces of flying aluminum when you need them?” 
Granted. When a hurricane first hits the beach, it is at its most powerful.
I just wanted to make clear that a hurricane isn’t like a scene from Twister, where there are cows and automobiles flying in the air (unless an actual tornado is spawned).
Light objects that can catch the wind, like sheet metal, corrugated fiberglass, and leafy tree branches, can be propelled in an especially strong hurricane. The chances of this happening are greater closer to the shoreline, of course. Still in all, there are typically very few deaths (or even injuries) from flying debris due to any given hurricane.
Thought this might be a timely bump. Perhaps the topic is on some minds.
Ever heard the term “cannon fodder”?
News reporters are a dime a dozen. And besides, if one is out there “bravely” reporting in the hurricane and gets squashed by an SUV or a cow or anything big that’s being blown around, think of the hours and hours and hours of airplay they can milk out of it. Especially if the death got caught on camera.
I’m just tickled at the change they’ve made to the graphics on the weather channel. Apparently, the old green/blue swirl representing the storm was not ‘edgy’ enough…so now, it’s shown in red. It looks like a giant nuclear vortex on the map.
I can imagine the board meetings now…"Okay gentlement, how can we make Katrina look more dangerous…I know, let’s set it on fire!’
Breaking news…‘Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know how to explain this…but Katrina has somehow achieved fusion and is raining fiery death on the Gulf Coast…whre’s Godzilla when we need him?!’
I’ve always envisioned one of these goofballs getting impaled by a flying signpost in mid-sentence, slowing sinking into the water with a stop sign sticking out of his chest.
I was watching hurricane coverage yesterday (Fox News? I can’t remember) where the reporter was in the French Quarter, wearing Gortex and squinting his eyes against the wind. Kind of ruined the effect, though, when you saw a guy in the background wearing shorts and a T-shirt, casually ambling along Bourbon Street.
I realized how true this was when a tiny little F1 tornado breezed through downtown Fort Worth in 1999 or 2000 and damaged a couple of buildings. The local newscasts kept referring to the “devastation in Fort Worth”. There was no devastation, and a whole freakin entire city block suffered damage. To hear them tell it, the entire city was decimated.
But you know, I can’t ever get enough of that stop sign wiggling.
If Geraldo ever does get slammed by flying aluminum or toppled into a puddle of sewage, will somebody pleeeeease post a link to it? That’s one thing I’d watch Fox news to see.
The answer to this question is, of course: It depends.
If it were someone from, say, The Daily Show, ironically, it wouldn’t be funny at all. I would miss this person, you see.
However, there are plenty of “reporters” out there who strive their entire professional lives to bring to the Teeming Millions the clearest, most vivid, most high-resolution photographs of Britney Spears’ untrimmed twat we could ever imagine. Couple with this talent for candid, realistic documentation, the bravery required to approach the likes of Kenny Rogers with a camera more costly than their current net worth in other assets, and you’ve got yourself some prime candidate meat for an ideal Hurricane Hunter.
Not only are these individuals the human equivalent of hagfish, there’s a virtually limitless supply. The major networks could simply keep a warchest of funds for freelancers and routinely audition some sufficient number on an annual basis to keep up with attrition. I imagine screen tests on a Hollywood sound stage equipped with one of those big ass fans that could lift a helicopter, rain machines, dry ice, the works. And the outtake compilations would not only be a scream, I bet they’d bring in some major revenue as well.
So as long as you’re dealing with the right sorts of journalists, I’d say you’re on to something brilliant, here. Reality TV at its most dramatic and hilarious, simultanously. You’ve got a bright future in programming, my good sir.
