When bad weather looms, journalism responds

There is no way for an editor to comfortably issue certain assignments to a reporter. There is no assignment too mundane for any reporter. These realities converged Monday morning.

The news meeting had just ended. Senior Deputy Managing Editor Diane Dungey and Deputy Managing Editor Pete Nenni were having a strategic review at Nenni's desk of what needed to be accomplished. Assistant Managing Editor and Tax Watchdog Jake Griffin, who starts early in the mornings and helps get work under way on diverse stories that break overnight, walked past in their line of sight across the newsroom.

"Jake!" Dungey cried. "You get the call for today's 'wild weather story.'"

Griffin approached, nervously.

Dungey continued. "We need some angle. TV is saying we could have 14 inches."

Nenni interjected, "I heard eight or nine inches, maybe less."

"So, you want me to call the guy at the National Weather Service and ask him why he doesn't know how to do his job?" Griffin asks.

People laugh, but self-consciously. We know there is little new to say about an imminent snowfall in an Illinois winter and that forecasts are generally consistent. But we also know it's what everyone is talking about. We have to come up with something. Someone offers a suggestion not far removed from Griffin's sarcasm: Why is it that every forecast we've gotten this year of a "Snowmageddon" or disastrous blizzard has been totally wrong, not just a little off but a total bust?

There was more twittering and uneasy laughter. The usual complaints arose. "They" want clicks. "They" want ratings. "They" are managing expectations, making it sound horrible so people aren't so angry when things don't turn out so bad. "They" puff up the alarms to lure people into stores to buy stuff.

Insert whomever you want for "they" - websites, bloggers, social media, weather forecasters, the commercial-industrial complex, the deep state, the media (not "us," of course). But it is clear we are going to have a story. People want to talk about the weather. Alarm or no alarm, right or wrong, dire weather predictions attract readers. And, in fact, if things do get bad, people need to be prepared. Dungey cannot relent. Griffin cannot wiggle away.

"I'll make some calls," he grumbles. "You'll get what you get."

What we got was, among other delights, the word "flummox" in an online headline. More to the point, we got the vast divergence in predictions - from a television forecaster's Saturday tweet of an expected "MONSTER snowstorm here" to Monday evening predictions of "an inch or so" in some parts of the suburbs or "2 to 5 inches" elsewhere. By Wednesday morning, the milder expectations had come to pass.

"They" have explanations, which Griffin dutifully reported in his Tuesday story. Weather patterns shifted. The storm was forming "over us" rather than heading our way. Unpredictable systems were merging from the north and from the west. Models were changing hourly.

An early version of Griffin's story posted on The Daily Herald Facebook page reached nearly 78,000 people Tuesday morning and attracted more than 8,900 reactions. Readers were not amused. Well, maybe they were. In various online iterations, there were the usual jokes about wanting a job where you get paid whether you're right or wrong. Someone posted the hashtag #WrongAgain. Someone else posted a meme declaring "I SURVIVED THE BLIZZARD" with a tape measure resting on a palm-sized sprinkle of white powder on the sidewalk.

One of Griffin's sources sounds a little defensive. "Look," he says, "this is no different than forecasting the stock market or elections. You have an idea of what could happen, and you update those forecasts when you get more information."

In other words, apparently, you'll get what you get.

But I will add that one of the reasons these stories attract so much attention is that predictions are regularly accurate or close to it. Mistakes happen, and when forecasts are spectacularly wrong, they get more attention, but in general, weather reports are highly trustworthy. Newsroom conversation on Tuesday morning takes a turn in that direction. It is not as funny, but still newsworthy.

The close of Griffin's story holds a key: " 'In reality, the first thing we think about is the impact of the storm on humans,' said Dave Changnon, NIU's meteorology adviser. 'I'd rather go on the side of putting no one at risk rather than put anyone at risk.' "

That's not so funny, either. But it's worth remembering.

jslusher@dailyherald.com