WSU journalism student Shawn Wright snapped the view from Lafayette Park. Ford Field is visible, barely, at left. (Facebook photo)
"They do know this is Michigan, right? This is kinda like Seattle flipping out because of rain," John Hoffman of Grosse Pointe Woods tweets Saturday afternoon, commenting on city-by-city mobile alerts from WDIV about no-street-parking snow emergency declarations.
Hoffman isn't the only metro Detroiter who wonders why a six-inch weekend snowfall in mid-December provokes frenzied broadcast coverage of "a veritable snowpocalypse," as our Jeff Wattrick predicted Friday. Here's how a Free Press city hall reporter reacts to the incessant phone pings:
Help! My cell phone is being barraged by alerts as @Local4News tells us about every single last city declaring a snow emergency!
— Matt Helms (@MattHelms) December 14, 2013
And @Local4News has push alerted me 3 times that the City of St. Clair issued a snow emergency! #alertpocalypse #alertmageddon
— Matt Helms (@MattHelms) December 14, 2013
"Newest Weather Authority Derek Kevra ready to track the snow! " Fox 2 says in this web photo of its newcomer in scarf and heavy gloves.
In a reply tweet, a WDIV social media assistant tries to justify the avalanche -- though saying "if" seems oddly hopeful tone-deaf:
Sorry if you're unhappy with the number of alerts. They were coming in one-by-one into the newsroom.
Meanwhile, over at Fox 2, wicked weather is a chance for Saturday morning staffers to act mirthful and costumey before senior producers roll in. Two pose for dress-up-indoors photos . . . just as student journalists might after realizing they're in charge and can post anything.
Megan Ziegler of Southfield, a Fox 2 News web producer since October, also is ready if snow blows indoors.
Related coverage:
Will Winter Event 'Electra' Be The Class 3 Killstorm We've Been Promised?, Ded. 13
