Snow and the Media

Another eight to ten inches of snow fall last night and guess what the media are obsessed with the story. Now having worked in the media industry, anything where they can get either pretty pictures or shocking images will run and often lead the news. And while in recent years three weeks of snow is relatively rare, in the winter in Britain it will snow. That is not news.

While information is needed to plan activities, having half of each national broadcast showing pictures of snow, and the reporter standing in the snow, telling us that it has been snowing is not helping inform anyone.

I realise that the snow has caused some disruption, but the way the media has reported this, makes you think that the whole country expects everything to function perfectly normally. We don't Just less than a week ago the media were complaining that not all the minor roads had been gritted in some places. Yet last night there were reports saying that because all the minor roads had been gritted some councils were at risk of running out of rock salt. The implication being that this was poor planning. But had councils not gritted the minor roads and enabled access to smaller communities there would have been reports of people stranded and apparently abandoned by heartless local authorities. Talk about making a story out of nothing.

There is one rather interesting aspect to this weather event. As my significant other has needed me to look up bus times over the holiday period, I have discovered that my bus company has a face-book page where they post updates regarding delays and diversions, and this has proved invaluable in helping discover if a service is just delayed or has had to be cancelled.

At least today when I went to the village store for supplies, the drivers were navigating the roads with care. Unlike on the eve of the decade when most seemed to not want to see the new year arrive. Incidentally when I got to the store, they were just receiving their delivery and the shelves were empty of everything I wanted and needed. But unlike another woman who seemed to think that it was “a jolly bad show”, (translated for a family audience) I just took a philosophical approach and said I would return latter. After all the staff in the shop can not be held responsible for the weather conditions? Or will that be the news story tonight?