With a hurricane coming aground in Florida, remember: every time you see a live report by some reporter standing out in the storm, they're following in Dan Rather's footsteps.
Rather was the first reporter to brave a hurricane live, on the air. During Hurricane Karla in 1961, Rather took a microphone on a long, long chord out into the storm to shout his impressions of the storm to viewers nationwide. It was a hotdog move that contained precious little actual information and illuminated nothing, but his live-from-the-scene reporting so impressed CBS that it recruited him away from WHOU-TV in Houston to come to New York.
Every reporter out in Hurricane Fay is doing exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason.
Comments