By Timmy T. Tater
Chief Spud and Editor, The Sweet Potato
(Western Kentucky) — As Winter Storm Fern barreled toward our region last weekend, the TV meteorologist stood in front of a green screen showing swirling red doom-blobs, his face grave with concern. “Stay off the roads,” he warned, his voice trembling with urgency. “This is not a storm to mess with.”
Cut to: his colleague, a field reporter, standing on the shoulder of Interstate 24, snow pelting her face at a 45-degree angle, her hair frozen into a magnificent ice sculpture. Behind her, a semi-truck jackknifed in slow motion.
“As you can see, conditions are absolutely treacherous out here,” she shouted over the howling wind, gripping her microphone like it was the only thing tethering her to Earth. “Officials are begging residents to stay home.”
But wait. If it was too dangerous for us to drive, how was she standing there? Did the station issue special winter reporter licenses? Did they attend some clandestine academy where they learned to defy the laws of physics and black ice?
Meanwhile, every plow driver in the county was presumably swerving around news vans parked diagonally across merge lanes, their satellite dishes extended like middle fingers to common sense. The reporters emerged from these vehicles wearing inadequate winter coats (it’s important to show you’re suffering for journalism) to deliver crucial updates such as “still snowing” and “this man is shoveling his driveway.”
The man shoveling his driveway, by the way, also drove somewhere to be in this story. But that was different. He was a source. Sources were allowed out.
I decided to investigate whether news crews received specialized winter driving instruction. At the Kentucky Center for Investigative Journalism Training (which I’m pretty sure I just made up), an instructor who wished to remain anonymous revealed the truth: “We show them a 90-second video about turning into the skid. After that, they’re on their own. It’s really the camera equipment that makes them invincible.”
This tracks. The camera adds ten pounds, but apparently it also added traction.
The truth is, we probably should have stayed home during Winter Storm Fern. Road crews needed space to work. Emergency vehicles needed clear paths. Your office job could wait. But there was something deliciously absurd about being lectured on storm safety by someone standing knee-deep in a snowdrift, their news van idling behind them in a no-parking zone, contributing exhaust fumes to the “winter weather story” aesthetic.
So there we were, in a beautiful symbiotic relationship: They braved the elements to tell us not to brave the elements, and we stayed home watching them do the thing they were telling us not to do, and everyone felt like they’d fulfilled their role in society.
Stay safe out there, everyone. And remember: if you absolutely must drive in a winter storm, just tell people you’re reporting on it. Apparently that makes it fine.
