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If you're one of the 80 million Americans
that gets their news from cable, |
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this next story may shock you.
The watchdog group Fairness in Media |
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release a report this week,
accusing the weather channel |
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of having a "clear and pronounced
pro-weather bias." |
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Joining us now live is the director
of the Study, Debra Henley. |
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Hello Michael.
-Debra, good to have you with us. |
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Your report condemns
the weather channel |
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For what you call,
"One sided reporting." |
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How do you back up that claim?
-After watching hundreds of hours |
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of programming, we concluded
the weather channel |
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clearly and consistently over-reports
weather related events |
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at the expense of other topics.
There are on average four thousand mentions |
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of weather in a single news day.
-Four thousand, it's an amazing statistic. |
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Are other view points represented at all?
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-Barely. I mean, you'd think that absolutely
nothing was going on the I-20 corridor, |
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other than light showers
and isolated T-storms. |
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and even more insidious -
they try to make programming look varied |
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by covering things like flight delays
and vacation destinations, |
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but they always manage to bring it back
to weather. |
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Well let's see
what you're talking about, |
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here is the clip from the Weather Channel.
-Great, ok. Look at this clip. |
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We are going to dazzle everybody,
it's Holidazzle Parade going on |
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in Minneapolis, this is at Nicollet mall,
and of course this location typically quite cold.. |
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-Do you see this?
-It does seem fairly blatant. |
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Yes. I mean, if you look closely
you'll see their news ticker |
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is little more than the temperatures
of various cities |
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running 24 hours a day.
-I have noticed that. |
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They even use, do you see
this, background images |
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to subtly influence your beliefs
about weather. |
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So it's a problems not only
with the stories themselves. |
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Exactly Michael. And they use flashy graphics
and smooth jazz |
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to distract viewers from the unrelenting
pro-weather agenda |
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that they're constantly pushing.
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That's unbelievable. What's behind it all, though?
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Well what we discovered in our research
is that there's an ancient cabal |
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of powerful weather fanatics
operating outside any government. |
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Sometimes called "The Cloud Elders",
sometimes called "The Night's Doppler". |
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Pulling the strings,
not just of the weather channel, |
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but of the umbrella industry,
the sunscreen industry, |
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we have to fight back.
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Debra Henely of "Fairness in Media",
thank you and good luck |
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with getting your message heard.
-Thanks, Michael. |
