A moment of self-reflection: last week I was called by two different talk shows to ask if I might be willing to come and talk about the weather. What did I think of the weather anyway?
The answer ‘cold’ was already funny.
I don’t know anything about weather, I don’t know how it comes about, I don’t know why snow is cold, I don’t know anything at all, but I am annoyed by the excessive reporting about the weather. You can’t tease me worse than with the news that two trucks collided on an industrial estate, that cross-country skiing is possible on the Veluwe or that the road salt in some Brabant municipalities is running out. They knew that on the other end of the line too and that could be a hook on which the item could be hung, because the news is sometimes like a coat.
I could already see myself sitting between Mart de Kruif, Iran, ICE and the minority cabinet in the making. In my head I later heard my daughters asking what I was actually worried about at the start of the scribble dadsch. And then I had to pull the memory of that wild week with night frost and some snow out of my collective memory and that is why I had a taxi drive me to the television with the intention of being fiercely opposed to news about snowmen.
In my head I later heard my daughters asking what I was actually worried about at the start of the scribble dadsch
Or did I miss an opportunity here to really address something? Did I actually have a point with my annoyance? There are now so many conflicts, potential conflicts and flashpoints worldwide that news organizations are overwhelmed. The NOS reporting has never been under such a magnifying glass due to alleged wrong angles, but at the same time the biggest critics are clamoring for extra news. Even if those extra newscasts are there. At a time of so much criticism of reporting, even the lack of reporting is suspect. Why doesn’t NOS make an extra broadcast with the news that all correspondents are overloaded? Logically, they all have at least twelve countries in their portfolio, excluding the correspondents in the US and Israel/Gaza.
You can bet that editorial offices have silently cheered about the high-pressure area from Scandinavia that brought winter. I hardly dare to say it, but I suspect that extra news has even been considered.
The journalistic principles of NRC