I was sitting in a coffee shop the other day and the Weather Channel was on for some reason. I don’t imagine the coffee shop crowd overlaps much with the Weather Channel crowd, but it was on.
In the corner of the screen as it cut to a commercial I noticed it said “The most trusted news network in America.”
Not “weather network” but news network.
I mean, isn’t that kind of unfair?
How much trust does it take to tell me it’s raining on my head when I step out into the rain?
Imagine the All Day Gravity Network bragging about being the most trusted source of news. “Every day we provide hard hitting and accurate journalism pointing out the fact that heavier than air objects fall toward the earth.”
And yet…
Somehow, despite the odds, the Weather Channel manages to be untrustworthy. It’s quite an incredible story of overcoming the odds. The power of professional journalism is so great and so resilient that it manages to break trust even when the only job is to tell me what a radar shows. This is really something!
I live in a hurricane area. Every fall, the Weather Channel manages to show me the radar while at the same time telling me stuff completely at odds with it. “Here you can see this dying tropical storm 500 miles off the coast of nowhere with 20MPH winds doing nothing. In other words, board up your house because you will probably die.”
I think the Weather Channel should win every award in journalism. They have the hardest job. True professional journalism is all about creating narratives that ensure people are appropriately misinformed about the world. That’s not too hard when you’re reporting on some skirmish in some country no one’s been to. But to misinform people about the weather right outside their door day in and day out is next level journalism!
Hats off.