TV news can talk to us like we’re ever so slightly more intelligent than they are. They’re on friendly terms with us and they give us the executive summary.

Wait a minute, says a seasoned news person.

From the letters and phone calls, and the crummy social media, I can guarantee you that people aren’t more intelligent than we are, no matter how slightly you want to measure it.

But you still might want to pretend that they are. Because talking down to people is poison.

So, with natural disasters, just level with people, the degree of uncertainty, all of it.
 
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TV news can talk to us like we’re ever so slightly more intelligent than they are. They’re on friendly terms with us and they give us the executive summary.

Wait a minute, says a seasoned news person.

From the letters and phone calls, and the crummy social media, I can guarantee you that people aren’t more intelligent than we are, no matter how slightly you want to measure it.

But you still might want to pretend that they are. Because talking down to people is poison.

So, with natural disasters, just level with people, the degree of uncertainty, all of it.
Hurricane coverage is like the superbowl to some news networks. I wonder if that is why people panic shop like its the end times.
 
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Hurricane coverage is like the superbowl to some news networks. I wonder if that is why people panic shop like its the end times.
As an analogy . . .

With drugs and alcohol, and under-age drinking, I wish we’d talk about . . .

abstaining, and

maintaining a pleasant buzz

as both normal.

Instead, we kind of make binge drinking appear to be the norm even though we’re going through the motions of arguing against it.

=====

The phrase “social norming,” current verb -ing form, means giving the good news of how many people are responsible.

And not just the bad news [ of how important your field is because of how big a problem!]
 
With hurricanes . . .

it’s just too easy to give phrases like “slam” into the coast, even though the hurricane might only be moving 15 mph.

I’d almost rather that we go the whole way and use really colorful phrases like “will hit the coast like a freight train, a slow-moving freight train.” Notice how you can make the figure of speech more accurate.

As of Thursday, October 10th, Hurricane Milton hitting Florida is very serious. As it will continue to be below hurricane-level if it brings heavy rain to hilly areas prone to flash flooding.
 
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With hurricanes . . .

it’s just too easy to give phrases like “slam” into the coast, even though the hurricane might only be moving 15 mph.

I’d almost rather that we go the whole way and use really colorful phrases like “will hit the coast like a freight train, a slow-moving freight train.” Notice how you can make the figure of speech more accurate.

As of Thursday, October 10th, Hurricane Milton hitting Florida is very serious. As it will continue to be below hurricane-level if it brings heavy rain to hilly areas prone to flash flooding.
Agreed. I was on the opposite coast of the impact. There wasn't that much damage in my area but I swear reporters were driving around trying to find any one damaged area, and then using that to make it appear that Milton destroyed the entire town. I hate to be too pessimistic about news coverage on such important topics but I think it's warranted at times..
 
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There wasn't that much damage in my area but I swear reporters were driving around trying to find any one damaged area, and then using that to make it appear that Milton destroyed the entire town.
Not good at all.

And if we don’t have mainstream media, what do we have? Just some random clown on YouTube?
 
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Not good at all.

And if we don’t have mainstream media, what do we have? Just some random clown on YouTube?
I hear ya there. The random social media person oftentimes fills the vacuum left by the eroding trust in the mainstream media and that's unfortunate. We really need people to do their own research or find a good weatherman that doesn't hype things up as much.

At least it's not as bad a politics. The only trust problem I find with mainstream media coverage of hurricanes is just overhyping. The most damage that would do is probably lead people to overprepare and maybe panic shop.