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Reflections on Reporting Hurricanes
September 02, 2008 11:25 AM
By Mike Lee, ABC News
Watching the Gustav coverage from overseas, I feel first and foremost for those people who've been uprooted from their homes and have to worry about whether wind or water will destroy their houses. The hurricane has been widely covered on TV and in the papers here in Britain. I also feel for journalists who cover the story.
For reporters, covering hurricanes, especially for TV, is a risky business. By risky, and I confess to being frivolous here, I mean the risk that your live standup in the middle of the storm might not have the intense wind velocity as another network's or station's. I am reminded of this by a rather harsh yet funny piece by Paul Farhi in the Washington Post, about how reporters and anchors try to outdo one another by exposing themselves to the storm. I fear there may be a new psychological disorder called "wind envy" developing among reporters whose live performances don’t take our breath away. I mean, pity the poor reporters who can never beat the media coverage that Dan Rather received after he clung to his pole.
I covered hurricanes as a young reporter in Texas back in the '60s. I have a photo around the house somewhere. And I’m itching to cover another one. More on that in a second. Back in those old days, we reporters were lucky. Live TV remotes were few and far between. We were shooting film. No live shots, thus no pressure to perform every 30 minutes in the path of flying trees and metal roofs that could cut you in half.
All I had to do was step out of a hotel room for about a minute while my camera operator shot my on-camera "bridge." Then we would wait out the storm with food and drink. Often a generous amount of drink. When it was safe, say only 80 miles per hour winds, we would drive around, film the damage and talk to folks. The real pressure was getting our film to the lab in time for that day's newscast.
So why am I itching to cover a hurricane in today’s pressurized round the clock media environment? Because I want to put the picnic back into disaster coverage. I want to set up in a bunker, or at least a stormproof building with windows or portholes for the my live cameras.
I have no intention of setting foot outdoors while it is unsafe. Instead, I will set up surrogate reporters outside my bunker, lots of them. They will be mannequins, donated by local department stores and anchored to the ground with sandbags. Out of respect for family viewing, I will dress them, perhaps , as leading contenders for U.S. president and vice president. Maybe there will be a Paris Hilton entry. We will run a live online contest as to which "reporter" will be blown away first. Send me your mannequin ideas, so we can prepare for the next storm.
And what about the classic shot of the car that was blown or washed down the road. That is usually only an aftermath picture. But I will ask a used car dealer to park a few bangers in front of my bunker so that you can see LIVE if any of them blow away. The dealer can paint his name on the car is about to lose. Who says that product placement can not happen in hurricanes!
Want power lines being torn down? We’ll install a toy power line and watch it being whiplashed. The same for little tree and bushes, donated by the local nursery. Throw in a few garden R from the local home improvement superstore, and we will have our own little community that will be destroyed in front of our eyes, LIVE.
No reporters will be harmed in the making of this hurricane special. I will be doing my standups from an armchair inside the bunker.
Joking aside, in the meantime, in real life, hard work and physical risks will continue among reporters, and under enormous pressures. I hope they stay safe. And what hurricanes do to residents is no joking matter.
September 2, 2008 in Mike Lee | Permalink | User Comments (1)
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These ridiculous live reports will continue until a reporter is cut in half by a peice of flying metal roofing, or picked up by the wind and impaled on the stub of a tree branch, on live TV. Only after 50 million or more people are exposed to that gruesome sight will reporters start to tell their bosses, that they'll be happy to report on the next hurricane Camille - from the safety of a storm-proof building, as Mike Lee wants to do.
After more than fifty years of television of hurricanes, does anyone NOT know what such a storm looks like? Has anyone heard of archival footage?
Posted by: Bob | Sep 2, 2008 12:58:14 PM
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