Snow Panic’ on TV news was a blizzard of cliches

First, a big "Thanks" to each and every one of you for your fine work on Snow Panic '99. I’ve already put the ad agency to work on some of those pat-ourselves-on-the-back commercials in which we will tell the audience we were:

• FIRST to think up a silly name for our coverage (no thanks to the cut-up who suggested "White House In Crisis").
• FIRST to think up an even sillier name for the people doing the coverage (although in retrospect, we should have thought a bit longer before going with our initial choice of "Storm Troops.")
• FIRST to call in the Varsity, indicating that the snow was of such severity that our newscast required the expertise of the people who read the news at 6, as opposed to the people who read the news at 5 or 5:30.

About that last item: As a professional with experience in 46 television markets over almost 12 years, I was especially taken with the smoothness of our anchor handoffs. According to the consultants, nothing sells a Weather Panic better than to have one person reading while the other nods sagely, and then have them switch. Well, our folks did some A-1 Sagely Nodding.

A real wordsmith

A special commendation goes to Our Own Rick Intrepid, who Bravely Challenged The Elements all weekend long. Rick remembered the first rule of Winter Weather Panic Reporting: Always act as if you’ve never seen snow before. The high point of his coverage was when he managed to use the words "Old Man Winter," "Mother Nature" and "White Stuff" in a single sentence: "Old Man Winter blew in and when all was said and done, Mother Nature had dumped 9 inches of White Stuff on the metro area." Nice to see Rick putting that Communications degree to such good use.

Of course, that’s not to say we didn’t goof up a few times. Some of it was not our fault. How were we to know every station in town would cover the story with reporters at the same airport concourse, the same highway garage and the same truck stop? And there was that time Our Susan Earnestly stood in front of some snow and said it was a 4 1/2-foot drift, after which the camera moved away to show a front-end loader piling up the snow to a level of . . . 4 1/2 feet. The lesson for you videographers: Remember why you’re here. Keep the camera on the reporter at all times.

Stating the obvious

But those are minor concerns. What’s important is that our Breathless Intensity convinced people they had to stay tuned in for hours at a time so we could tell them, over and over again, that:

1. It was snowing.

2. It was cold.

3. The roads were in bad shape.

Which they probably could have learned for themselves by:

1. Looking out a window.

Now, I have deliberately excluded from this memo the weather guys, who did an excellent job tracking the storm and telling people what to expect. They were a bit calm for my taste, though. Get in the game, fellas. How are we to convince the audience that this is the End Of The World if our own weather guys are telling people the storm is going to stop?

But in closing: If we can do this with Snow Panic '99, gang, just wait until tornado season. I think I’ll call it Awful Terrible Deadly Killer Whirlwinds '99. If I’m still working in this market, that is.

Mike Redmond an Indianapolis Star and News humor columnist. He has worked at Indianapolis Newspapers since 1982. Before that, he was a reporter, photographer and editor for The Columbus Republic, The Middlebury Independent and The LaGrange Standard-News, all in Indiana, and The Sturgis Daily Journal in Michigan. He began his column in 1995. Redmond has also been a commentator for the CBS News television program, "Up to the Minute." He lives in downtown Indianapolis in a house with an abundance of cats, 26 guitars and a leaky spot in the roof.