If you're one of the 8
that gets their news from cable,
this next story may shock you.
The watchdog group Fairness in Media
release a report this week,
accusing the weather channel
of having a "clear and pronounced
pro-weather bias."
Joining us now live is the director
of the Study, Debra Henley.
Hello Michael.
-Debra, good to have you with us.
Your report condemns
the weather channel
For what you call,
"One sided reporting."
How do you back up that claim?
-After watching hundreds of hours
of programming, we concluded
the weather channel
clearly and consistently over-reports
weather related events
at the expense of other topics.
There are on average four thousand mentions
of weather in a single news day.
-Four thousand, it's an amazing statistic.
Are other view points represented at all?
-Barely. I mean, you'd think that absolutely
nothing was going on the I-2
other than light showers
and isolated T-storms.
and even more insidious -
they try to make programming look varied
by covering things like flight delays
and vacation destinations,
but they always manage to bring it back
to weather.
Well let's see
what you're talking about,
here is the clip from the Weather Channel.
-Great, ok. Look at this clip.
We are going to dazzle everybody,
it's Holidazzle Parade going on
in Minneapolis, this is at Nicollet mall,
and of course this location typically quite cold..
-Do you see this?
-It does seem fairly blatant.
Yes. I mean, if you look closely
you'll see their news ticker
is little more than the temperatures
of various cities
running 24 hours a day.
-I have noticed that.
They even use, do you see
this, background images
to subtly influence your beliefs
about weather.
So it's a problems not only
with the stories themselves.
Exactly Michael. And they use flashy graphics
and smooth jazz
to distract viewers from the unrelenting
pro-weather agenda
that they're constantly pushing.
That's unbelievable. What's behind it all, though?
Well what we discovered in our research
is that there's an ancient cabal
of powerful weather fanatics
operating outside any government.
Sometimes called "The Cloud Elders",
sometimes called "The Night's Doppler".
Pulling the strings,
not just of the weather channel,
but of the umbrella industry,
the sunscreen industry,
we have to fight back.
Debra Henely of "Fairness in Media",
thank you and good luck
with getting your message heard.
-Thanks, Michael.
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