Opinions, they are what they are. They are neither factual nor compliant with the unbiased nature that is supposed to be news. Yet opinion anchors have almost monopolized every hour of your newscast on CNN, Fox News or MSNBC. So one could say, opinion is actually quite newsworthy based on these precedents, and what topic is there that more people have opinions on than the weather?
Weather is something we all experience, one of life’s great unifiers you could say. When in need of a topic with a stranger, bring up the weather, it always works and guess what, you are guaranteed a strong opinion. Northerners will pester their southern friends, when they whine about the cold, about their apparent lack of inborn insulation, which must increase the farther north one is born. On the other hand, those individuals we all know from Texas find it necessary to share about the current weather conditions in their homeland.
Non-Texan Harding student: “Man it is freezing out there, and that rain makes it so much worse.”
Texan Harding student: “Ah yeah, its apparently mild and sunny in Texas right now, we should just move Harding there.”
Then there are those more serious weather moments, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms and when it rains everyday on your Florida vacation. At those times the weather becomes do or die, it becomes your world and dictates your plans for the rest of the day. Its weather’s way of saying “stop using me as a filler in your awkward conversations,” and an excuse politicians can use when addressing global warming. If you don’t talk about it, it wont hurt you.
To the contrary, over the years I have grown quite accustomed to talking about the weather. From those awkward silences that just must be filled with statements of the obvious conditions outside, to my outstanding knowledge of specific weather phenomena I would use to impress my parents as a young child, it has all culminated in me being able to share my joy on TV-16 news as your campus weatherman.
Presenting weather in the news is the ultimate in being biased, rain will not be offended if you tell your viewers to stay inside and avoid it. But weather is also quite one-dimensional. Though we do all have our different opinions, you would be hard-pressed to find two individuals locked in a great weather debate. Thus, it is really something that should not be addressed outside the introductory conversation between two strangers, or an informative daily weather update. But then there are people like me, who write opinion columns about it, because they love it, amidst knowing this may be the most boring and pointless opinion column any of you have ever read.
