Civic Participation
What does America really care about? Politics? War? Crime? Gossip? Try again:
In terms of the public’s specific news interests, weather has consistently been a closely followed news topic. Nearly half of Americans (48%) say they follow weather news very closely, which is largely unchanged from 2006 (50%). No other topic generates close to this level of interest.
Editors and news producers: Adjust your coverage accordingly.
Hell, yeah, I got three weather channels I can check. And I do. Not only am I in that demographic, but I embrace it, man: am I riding my bike to work tomorrow? Or do I have to tell my wife she can’t have the car?
— Sanjay · Aug 19, 03:16 PM · #
Seconding Sanjay. Weather has a much greater impact on one’s day-to-day life than anything else, unless you’re living in a war zone…
I’m posting this comment shortly after my electricity was restored- from under the tails of Tropical Storm Fay.
— Joey · Aug 19, 07:11 PM · #
Two things. First, Drudge has already adjusted his coverage.
Second, Sanjay, if I remember correctly, lives somewhere near where I do, in the East Bay, Oakland-Berkeley area. Weather channels are pointless here. 10 months out of the year, we have no weather. The weather report is always “same as it was yesterday.”
— Matt Feeney · Aug 19, 11:09 PM · #
Oh, no, Matt. I have relocated to the Southeast as of a year ago. I agree that the only weather forecast you need in the Bay is a calendar. Although the rainy season kind of went from two months of pointless drizzle, to something sort of resembling rain.
When I moved to the Bay in 1999 from Boston that really flummoxed me. Every morning I got up, saw the foreboding fog, and thought, “better not ride my bike today,” and then two hours later — bright sun. And the locals would say to you, “Oakland? Oh, well — Oakland does have the best weather in the Bay” when they lived only two towns away (say) and you’d think, the people here are complete loons. Now, years later, I know a guy in SF who moved two blocks for sunnier weather, and having been in both houses I agree.
— Sanjay · Aug 20, 01:02 PM · #
Oh please, half of my local nightly news already is weather. What we need is for the candidates to take note and for NASA to get their asses to work on a national weather machine already.
— Chris · Aug 20, 01:59 PM · #