Follow up: meeting with WSAV

As long time followers know, I have some issues with the way storm hazard information is conveyed to the public. I often feel the risk is exaggerated or out of context, which is harmful because there are times when you need to be worried. Sometimes the exaggeration is deliberate, but more often than not it’s an artifact of the way the system works, and interaction of many complex factors. The net effect in my opinion is it distorts the risk and scares people unnecessarily, as well as hurts the credibility of an institution that is utterly vital if our society and democracy are to function properly. Be it weather or geopolitics, it is essential that citizens get information from trusted sources, and sadly most of the usual sources have become compromised for a lot of complex reasons, not just the quest for ratings and advertising dollars. 

Given that complexity, while I often rant about generic mischaracterization, I typically I don’t call out a specific media outlet by name unless it is (a) pretty egregious, (b) it involves me directly, or (c) I get a lot of questions and complaints about it. I’m not the arbiter of media conduct, it’s not really my place to do it, but sometimes I feel I have to say something. WSAV’s forecast on 11 January for the possible severe weather on the 12th met two of my criteria (a and c), so I did a pretty harsh post outlining what I thought was a major problem in their presentation (link). 

More often than not that would have been the end of it. But to my surprise I received a long response from WSAV’s General Manager, David Hart, along with an invitation to discuss the matter. We were able to meet this Friday (the 19th), and had an interesting and I hope productive discussion with him and WSAV’s Chief Meteorologist, Scott Roberts. The meeting started with me outlining my specific concern with the 11 January depiction in detail, which seemed to break the ice a bit when Scott quickly recognized my biggest specific concern was valid: that WSAV incorrectly stated that the Storm Prediction Center’s (SPC) forecast was “high risk” in the text of the web site that accompanied their graphic (above) – and their web site was wrong to make that statement. 

We had a longer discussion of their reclassification of the SPC zones, as shown here. The SPC graphics/forecast are an attempt to merge the two elements of “risk,” the probability of an event, and the severity of the event if it does occur. In essence, WSAV’s graphics are trying to simplify the SPC categories from six to four, and reduce that split characterization into a single message. It is my position that using SPC’s geographic depictions with a different classification scheme that does not take in to account the probability/severity relationship is potentially misleading. I think that ultimately Scott agreed with that, and he said they are reconsidering this graphic and how they present the forecasts.

One of the issues that David discussed at length is that there is a growing impression that the news media deliberately exaggerates, distorts, and even falsifies news reports for ratings or, even more toxic to trust, advocate a particular point of view (advocacy journalism). He is adamant that won’t happen on his watch. One of his big concerns is that incidents like this one further feeds this impression that the local media is untrustworthy and biased. So he was vehement in pushing back against the idea there is deliberate exaggeration, while admitting mistakes were made. To quote his initial email, “Part of my job is sticking up for our folks when they deserve it – while also holding ourselves accountable when we fall short.“

We also discussed the WSAV news team and how it has evolved over the last few years, and their coverage of other recent events like the elections and lessons learned from Hurricane Idalia. 

So what’s the bottom line? WSAV screwed up by saying that SPC had us in a high risk zone. They should be given credit for acknowledging that. I don’t think it was a deliberate attempt at exaggeration; the fact that description stayed up well after the risk had dropped and the forecast graphic updated was an oversight and technical/QC problem. In a rapidly changing situation that’s unfortunate but we all (yes, even me) do it.

As I noted in the meeting several times, I really don’t like the fact they reclassify the SPC zones without changing the boundaries, and feel that reclassification approach mischaracterizes the risk with a high bias that can be perceived as exaggeration. To be fair other stations do the same thing so WSAV isn’t alone using this approach, but I think it’s really problematic, and makes confusion (and serious disconnects between the graphics and the text) more likely because if you quote SPC, it doesn’t match your graphics, because the terminology is different.

Scott says they are going to rethink the graphics, as well as make it clearer what is from SPC and what is their own forecast commentary. I hope they either come up with an entirely new approach, or better yet simply stick with the SPC zonations and teminology, and then add their own enhanced commentary (which is essentially the approach many others take, including myself). All told, I’m convinced Scott and his team are taking this seriously.

In my original post I called WSAV’s presentation “irresponsible.” Was that fair? Probably not – in a perfect world I should have reached out to them first, but as noted in the other posts, in the recent past my media contacts have left me a bit jaded about that. In the heat of the moment it certainly looked irresponsible, and definitely had the impact of scaring people. I don’t want to blow this out of proportion, but equally I don’t think it should be minimized because over time if the credibility of forecasts are compromised, when it really counts people might get hurt. So while I feel I was justified to be harsh, maybe another word would have been better, although the other “i-word” I had in mind probably wouldn’t have made them any happier 🙂 . 

All in all, I’m relieved WSAV recognizes the point and are willing to consider changes, and I’m happy to know if something comes up in the future there is someone willing to talk and consider changes without a public debate. Having open lines of communications and mutual respect is the way to handle these things.

Local media is an essential part of our society, and sadly under attack from all sides commercially, politically, and practically as a result of the fragmented markets with 1000’s of choices ranging from big commercial operations to bloggers living in their basements with chips on their shoulder (for the record I don’t have a basement 😛 ). Media outlets have to be held to high standards, and if they are to survive will have to live up to those standards. I was impressed that David Hart owned up to all this and reached out. We all make mistakes, which of course is just part of life. And we will have differences of opinion. The real test is if you learn from them and do better. Given our discussions I’m willing to give WSAV the benefit of the doubt and am optimistic to see what happens. Needless to say, we will all be watching …