Hey, It's Cold Outside, Did You Hear The News? The Moronic Non-News In Your SF Bay Area; Wednesday Starter

 It's cold outside in case you didn't hear or see. Yeah, it's cold. Generally it gets cold this time of the year being that we're near winter and when winter is beckoning it tends to get cold, I mean really, really cold, and in some cases, super cold, did you hear?

 

I heard KCBS did a five-minute phoner with a woman weather forecaster Wednesday morning who told us that it's so cold it may snow in the Sierra--you don't say!

 

And I heard anchor Susan Leigh Taylor ask if it really gets super-duper cold could we get some snow later in the week in the higher elevations. "Uh, yeah, " said the hyperactive weather lady. KCBS went further sending reporter/anchor Holly Quan out to the SF Produce Mart to ask a worker about the cold and its effect on tender vegetation. So, in addition to the regular, repetitive traffic and weather reports every ten minutes, we got bonus team coverage telling us how damn cold it's gonna be outside but I think you know that already.

 

KCBS wasn't alone. The albatross other all-news station did its share of cold stories as did the weather people on local TV news. It's the winter equivalent of the summer moron series where Bay Area TV/Radio people tell us that it's really hot outside and we get about 600 dumb actualities from Floyd the roofer in Livermore confirming that, yes, it's a damn hot one.

 

We've been down this road before. It should confirm the obvious to you, the listener, the viewer, what they, the news people, the assignment editors regard as important news as if it were really news, The fact that their may be freezing weather is really no news at all and even if that were the case, does it matter to anyone other than mostly farmers and botanical people? OK, yes, it's a bad deal if you're homeless and indigent and that sucks but again, we already know that and have heard it over a million times. Get a live truck out to a shelter--do a quick story, give a plug and tell the viewers where they could drop off blankets and coats. Boom. Done. Let's move on to news. Remember that age-old relic?

 

I've never understood the over-abundance of weather information we're subjected to here in the Bay Area, especially irksome when for the most part, the weather is rather predictable: fog near the coast in Summer and warm to hot inland...cool near the coast and chilly in the northern and eastern valleys in Winter time.  Of course we get the unusual high/low pressure system that gives us some snow, a little bit sometimes even near sea level but that's the exception. And if and when it gets to that point, then of course it's worth providing extra TEAM coverage because, God forbid, there's really no other valid time spent on the airwaves to devote attention to, like, say, the underground subway to nowhere and the politics and money behind it; the rather prolific junkets Mayor Ed Lee takes on trips to China and India; the numerous amount of bike and motorcycle accidents in the city that usually end up with someone dying; the continuing BART management-labor imbroglio; the cop shortage in Oakland and San Jose; the dysfunctional Mayor Jean Quan --you know, that little deal called real news, but that's not sexy enough and doesn't fit in the handbook because it's cold outside and you know, it's gonna be real cold later, did you heard the news?

Moron alert!

 

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