Covering
A Big Snow Storm
Here are ideas for television reporters and photographers that should increase the
quality of the live, continuing coverage.
- Motorists telling what it was like to drive their roads and what they saw
gives you people (sound bites) and information. Most people can explain what the road was
like they just drove on.
- Pre-interview to maximize the discussion. This allows the reporter and the
photographer to anticipate elements. It facilitates shooting tape that can play unedited
but will still have the best anecdotes and moving video moves that shows key subjects.
- Do a :20-:45 interview as one continuous bite on tape. This gives you a
brief bite that can be produced quickly, fed in, and used at any point that it's needed.
As time is available, drop in tight shot of subjects to reduce time the person
speaking is on camera and upgrade the vid. Snow, cars, wind flags.
- Driving descriptions. They tell what they've experienced. A person tells
of spinning out, a 180 degree turn and surviving uninjured.
- Driving comparisions. To a motorist: Your trip normally takes how long?
How long did it take today?
- "Expert" drivers include: Snow plow driver. Newspaper
deliveryman. Package delivery service person.
- Snow plowing or shoveling crew. How long have they been at? What was the
snow and the drivers like?
- You need time to find information and interviews. A director or producer
calling for additional live pictures from you defeats the search for fresh angles and
tape.
- The first storm of season features stocking up on lots of supplies. People
buy food, rock salt, shovels. Will there be temporary shortages?
- Demonstrate the texture of the snow. Light and fluffy may be easier to
shuffle and pushed by the wind. Wet and heavy may be right for snowballs, and be slippery
when packed on the highways.
- A rolling shot of road conditions --- highway and neighborhood --- is very
useful. It is quickest to shoot, and gives you something to get on the air quickly with.
It has motion. It shows central information, particularly if the bad weather is underway.
- Live location changes should be few, and across short distances if they
are necessary. It takes time to break down, if it is possible to move. Move to a different
dateline if you move.
- A second vehicle gives you opportunity to vary your stories and video,
even a slight move may beat another hit in the same location. A move risks getting stuck
and missing air.
- The first storm of season features stocking up on lots of supplies. People
buy food, rock salt, shovels. Will there be temporary shortages?
- Be careful with lighter, joking material. It may be perceived as funny
---or as silly ---by viewers.
- Use your scanner to monitor falls, pedestrians hit, and accidents.
This is the hard news of the place that you are covering.
- Vary the look of your hits. In one direction, you may show the key
highway. In the next one, you shoot in another direction and show people at the gas pumps.
- Coiled cable gives a live camera the flexibility to go for it, especially
when never know when they're coming to you. Have enough to reach potential heads live.
- Show the wind with flags and shaking bushes. It may feel worse than it
looks on camera. Pick the parts where the object is most impacted. A flag flying straight
outward shows more wind than one hanging limply and occasionally pushed.
- When you don't have enough units in place to vary the coverage it gets
weak the third or fourth time around --- or as the storm is over and it is no longer an
issue.
- As exhaustion and boredom sink in during long coverage, particularly if
the weather is not amazingly bad, you must keep going, looking for the latest information
and unique angles.
- When you're shooting for the moment you may not have reserves for taped
package for later. Be prepared to at least do a chronological piece with the video that
you've shot. Through the day, write a simple chronological report with times of bites in
case you have to leave a package.
- Preparation: Have main roads identified, phone numbers of main features
such as police, emergency services, malls and ski areas in advance.
- To go live from stores selling snow supplies and food (large chain
hardware stores and grocery supermarkets) get permission before the storm. You can't count
on being allowed in just because you are interested. They may have to check a regional or
national manager to approve it.
- File your notes and info and use them to prep for future coverage.
- What interesting video could a competitor bring up live and burn you?
- You must have the first video of the snow on your air and on tape at base
for repeated use.
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Weather Forecasts
This site provides access to thousands of forecasts, images, and a large collection of
weather links.
Blizzard
of '93:
Extended Storm Coverage
Television news operations battled the snow, cold and wind to report on power outages,
highway hazards and the storm's impact.
The Perfect Storm
The Halloween 1991 northeaster was a storm of enormous intensity.
The fishing boat Andrea Gail sank carrying its six-man crew with it. An Air National
Guardsman died when his rescue helicopter had to ditch in the raging seas after it ran out
of fuel while trying to aid a sailboat.
The story was told in the non-fiction Perfect
Storm by Sebastian Junger and was captured
on film by Warner Brothers. See Coast Guard photos by Chief
Petty Officer Scott Vriesman.
Stockton Coastal Research
New Jersey beaches documented at length by a project at Richard Stockton College.
TV
and Politics:
Covering the Candidates
Politicians put their best spin forward, and reporters supposedly tell their public what's
really going on.
 You can quickly locate information anywhere throughout the public
portion of our site using a full-text search engine.
Subscribers can
search the Rundown's password-protected online archives.
 Here is information on the views
and attitudes of the viewing public --- excerpts of significant polling projects.
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