Hurricane Ian renews US debate over journalists exposed to storms

In addition to dozens of lives lost and a scenario of destroyed houses, fallen poles and downed trees, Hurricane Ian has rekindled an unusual topic for the American press: television reporters who are literally in the eye of the hurricane to broadcast Live.

This Wednesday (30), a video of Weather Channel presenter Jim Cantore being hit in the leg by a tree branch was widely shared on social media, while trying to balance himself so as not to be dragged by the winds of up to 250 km / h with which Ian hit the small town of Punta Gorda, Florida.

“Give me a second. You can’t stand up,” says the reporter, at one point in the broadcast, holding on to a pole to keep from flying through the torrential rain. Officials say Ian could become one of the deadliest phenomena to hit the US state in decades.

Experienced in covering hurricanes, the presenter was fine, but the report raised the question, on social networks and in the press itself, of why broadcasters put the lives of journalists at risk by sending professionals to report extreme weather phenomena in loco.

“Watching a soaked human being beaten by elements of nature is the kind of dramatic image that broadcasters seek in these situations, even more so in a context where videos like Cantore’s can go viral,” wrote The Washington Post. In the article, the newspaper adds that this type of reporting has been common in the US for decades and that TVs are not content to just point a camera at the hurricane in action.

“This participatory journalism is unparalleled in the news business. War reporters generally don’t literally put themselves in the middle of combat, and police reporters don’t broadcast in the middle of gunfire. A reporter covering a fire keeps a safe distance from the fire. .”

Several reports — both on Hurricane Ian and on destructive storms from previous years, such as Irma and Sandy — point out the contradiction in deliberately putting a person inside a hurricane if the main message is precisely to show the risks of the extreme phenomenon and ask them to no one leaves the house until the rain stops. In other words, journalists would sabotage the news itself.

There is no news value in sending journalists to cover hurricanes live, The Atlantic argued in relation to television reports during Hurricane Sandy ten years ago. That’s because the information reporters bring—”the wind is too strong and the tides are rising with the rains”—is obvious and can be obtained in safer ways.

Risking the personal safety of a professional is only worth it in specific coverage, such as wars, movement of refugees and countries with repressive political regimes, argues The Atlantic, because information in these situations is restricted and unpredictable and would hardly be disseminated without the presence of an on-site journalist.

For all the cons of reporting from inside a hurricane, journalists in this situation sometimes end up doing lifesaving work, like reporter Tony Atkins of an Orlando TV station.

He rescued a woman who got stuck in her car while trying to get through a flood caused by Ian. “I looked for police officers who could help rescue that woman. But no one was there,” he said.