On the whole,
meteorologists got this weekend’s snowstorm right. That doesn’t mean they won’t
get the requisite amount of shit from the angriest/snarkiest among us when they
get something wrong next time.
It’s a pastime up there
with “complaining about construction” and “making sarcastic comments about the
Oscars.” Mockery of weathermen and women mostly comes about when storms like
this underperform. I truly believe there’s a segment of the population upset
that the snowstorm dumped the predicted amount of snow (officially measured at “a
whole freaking ton”), as it robbed them of a chance to take those lying
bastards at AccuWeather down a peg.
In advance of this
weekend’s storm, a meteorologist friend of mine posted an op-ed e written by a
fellow meteorologist, Becky Elliot, in the Washington Post lashing out at the
heat forecasters take when Winter Storm JONAS turns out to be winter storm jonas.
(Also, remember when everyone said that the Weather Channel naming winterstorms like hurricanes was dumb?)
Elliot’s argument is
two-pronged. First, she rails against a portion of the public’s tendency to
turn individual storms or streaks of weather as an argument for or against
climate change. This is a good point, because doing this is incredibly stupid,
whether you’re arguing for or against global warming.
Secondly, she implores
the public to lay off meteorologists when forecasts aren’t correct. Elliot says
those in her line of work beat themselves up enough when forecasts are wrong,
and that random assholes online or in the public eye who pile on aren’t
helping. While this is certainly true, I’m less on board with this argument
because I used to be a journalist.
Alright, a college journalist.
But still.
As someone who studied
media and still desires to work in media again, I used to feel the need to defend
my journalistic brothers and sisters from every last detractor who bashed “irresponsible”
journalism – which almost always meant the journalist presented a viewpoint that
they didn’t agree with. It usually went something like this:
ARTICLE: Something People Are Very Passionate About
Commenter: This is
awful journalism. They’re ignoring the real FACTS of the matter, which is that
they’re WRONG.
Except this would play
out in real life, and I would point out that not all journalists are paid based
on online “clicks” and on the whole don’t allow slant or bias to populate their
stories…and it wouldn’t matter. People who aren’t heavily invested in a
particular field are happy to carry on with their preconceived notion of the
field. This is in part because it allows people to act like experts about jobs
or lines of work that they aren’t familiar with, and because it fits with their
existing worldview. It’s the same reason retail workers or food servers have
strong opinions about how customers should treat them at their place of
business when most people just wish they’d get their coupons processed or get
their order right FOR ONCE (even though said retail workers or food servers get
it right 9 times out of 10).
Point is, if a person
is the type of individual to blast the entire practice of meteorology, or
economics, or customer service, or whatever, based upon one or two noticed
inaccuracies in contrast to 98 unnoticed instances of good work…that person’s
probably not going to change their worldview because one person says “lay off.”
It’s a lot easier for someone to play Monday morning quarterback than acknowledge
someone else’s good work.
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