CSotD: Ask a silly question, get a 90-second segment
Skip to comments
One positive aspect of the start of hurricane season is that, finally, the newscasters' chatter about "Obama's Katrina" will begin to make a little bit of sense. However, like today's xkcd, I don't expect the questions to become a whole lot more insightful or fact-based. The truth is, most reporters don't have a very strong background in much of anything beyond reporting, and with cutbacks, they are required to go out on stories for which they have even less expertise than ever.
And if you think the stuff that gets on the air is vacuous, you ought to see the stuff that doesn't. When I was reporting, there was a reporter at the local TV station who was noted for (A) her good looks and (B) her foolish questions. As time went on, (A) and (B) changed places and, cute as she was, even the most macho sources began to dread her approach. She did an entire segment once in which she asked meteorologists if the current weather pattern was a sign of global warming, and each one told her, "No, it's called 'Indian summer.'" That piece went on the air, which perhaps gives you an idea of what sorts of questions were too ridiculous to cobble into a 90-second news story.
Eventually, one of the networks hired her as a correspondent. She worked there for several years, though I haven't seen her on the air lately.
There are limits, mind you. The best question ever came from a local reporter and was, admittedly, her last assignment before the station decided they just couldn't justify having her on staff. I wasn't present for this, but heard it from two reporters who were: The state police were having a next-day news conference at the site of a murder, and, in front of the assembled multitude, she asked the chief investigator, "How was the murderer able to get past all this yellow tape?"
You can't be telegenic enough to overcome that sort of thing.
Comments 3
Comments are closed.