Clichés. Don’t you love them? Maybe yes, maybe no – but they are painfully difficult to avoid and just plain painful when they get mixed.
Case in point?
Live storm coverage from Dick Faurot. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not picking on Mr Faurot, as I appreciate his style and experience. Those guys doing the weather on television get a lot of grief, and it isn’t my intention to pile on here.
The radar was indicating tornadoes Saturday night and I was watching an interesting Sherlock Holmes show that fell victim to the storm coverage. (Sometimes I think we all are victims of the advanced technology that allows the TV weather folks to ramble on about “what’s going on.” Mr. Faurot’s words, not mine.)
Oh, wow. We’re going back to programming now. The show, that gives clues leading up to a conclusion, will have presented the evidence during our storm-break. We’ll see how that turns out when we are returned to regular programming.
Back to those mixed clichés. The phrase “In the Field” has been around for awhile. We have a reporter “in the field” and will have a report from him/her shortly. Maybe this one has gone by the wayside a bit, although I remember it well. Just as I am dismissing it here – Mr. Faurot has just used that phrase to describe one of his weather reporters. In the field. Oh, yeah. That guy is most certainly out “in the field.” Not in a car, truck, or van. He’s in the field. Yeah. Sure.
“On the Ground” is a new cliché that reporters these days try to work in at any opportunity. I’m not exactly certain why clichés are better than simple words. Maybe there is a cachet that is attached to phrases that are thrown around by the network big-boys/girls. Hearing them in a news report may cause other reporters to “jump on the bandwagon” (an old-school cliché) and work them into their stories.
Oh. Severe weather coverage is over. Back to network TV programming. Ooops. I’ve missed the conclusion of the program I was watching, due to the storm coverage. No more Sherlock Holmes. He was quick to present his own suppositions, and I suppose I can make up my own ending, based on the clues presented before the storm interruption.
Back to the case in point: here is the mixed cliché result from Mr. Faurot, part of his description of the weather activity in the Muskogee area. A tornado was indicated by radar, but there was no visual confirmation from spotters, which he wanted to point out.
Dick Faurot: We don’t have confirmation from anyone IN THE GROUND.”
Not “On the ground.” Not “In the field.” He landed on a mix of the two to tell us that nobody confirmed – from their graves, presumably – that a tornado had passed over. That is to say: No one IN THE GROUND confirmed the passage of a twister in the Muskogee area.
Spotters, they are called. Those folks who call in to assist the TV station in their coverage of serious weather events. Wouldn’t those reports be so much better if all those who are currently six-feet-under could add to the reporting?
Mr. Faurot, during a severe weather outbreak: We go now to Mount Carmel Cemetery and the Earthly remains of Miss Joyce Wachthewether, who – during her regular life – loved to watch the weather. Miss Joyce? What are you seeing from your vantage point IN THE GROUND?
Ms. Wachthewether: Well, to be honest, it’s mostly dark here – but I’m guessing that’s due to the bad weather. I’m hearing some whisking winds and it may be a good time to seek shelter underground.
Mr. Faurot: Thank you Ms. Wachthewether. We go now to John Adriver, who is on the Muskogee Turnpike, on the fringe of the storm.
The programming that had been ended tonight on KOTV for storm coverage has not been interrupted for the past fifteen minutes, which tells me that that previous break-in… the one that caused me to miss the end of the show I was watching – was mostly frivolous. Aaaaahh. I take that back. Not frivolous. But certainly, unnecessary.
Better to be safe than sorry – from a meteorologist’s point of view.
But many of us weren’t in the Muskogee area. Maybe most of us. It’s too bad that those TV weather reports, in this age of technology, cannot be targeted to the specific region in potential danger.
It’s also too bad that we can’t get on the scene reports from those correspondents IN THE GROUND. When I’m six-feet-under, I plan on making regular reports on the weather, the expressway traffic, and national politics. Check in with KOTV for reports from those of us – In the ground.
