Scribble Chat: Storms and natural disasters
A discussion around best practices when covering weather, storms and natural disasters in real time
by Miles Kenyon
This week's Scribble Chat will investigate real-time reporting of weather, storms and natural disasters.
What elements take your weather reporting above the fold? How do you gather information if it's unsafe to have reporters in the field? What do you do if your newsroom is under water?
To answer these questions, we'll be hearing from two journalists with first-hand experience in real-time weather reporting: Lauren Johnston from the New York Daily News and Jennifer Narramore from the Storm Report.
The chat will take place Tuesday, December 3, 2012 at 12:00 pm EST.
If you'd like to leave a comment, please log in in the Make a Comment box below. Please note that comments are moderated and not all will be included.
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As we batten down the hatches in preparation of today's chat, here's a little weather-inspired music to set the mood:
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Hi, everyone! We'll be starting the chat shortly. Have questions for our experts? Send 'em in!
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Welcome to this week's Scribble Chat! My name's Miles and I'll be moderating today's discussion on real-time coverage of weather, storms and natural disasters.
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I'm very pleased to have two experts with us today who can help shed some light on this often-overlooked coverage.
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Jennifer Narramore is a Midwest girl, originally from Beech Grove, Indiana. Her interest in weather came in middle school. She was living in Central Florida at the time and became fascinated with hurricanes and tracked every storm on the tracking charts you get at the grocery store.
Jennifer Narramoreby Miles KenyonHer family moved to Pennsylvania when she was in high school and Jen went to the Pennsylvania State University (Go Lions!) and received her Bachelor of Science in Meteorology in 1995. Jennifer landed a job in the radio department at The Weather Channel in 1997. She has broadcasted on several radio affiliates across the country including: WIOD/Miami, WGST/Atlanta, WBAP/Dallas, WGY/Albany, WWKI/Kokomo, Indiana, WIBX/Utica, WRSA/Huntsville and WMNI/Columbus. @Jnarramore -
Lauren Johnston is the digital editorial director for the New York Daily News and an adjunct professor in online journalism at St. John's University. She covered Hurricane Sandy as it decimated New York and flooded the NYDY newsroom, forcing Lauren to lead her team remotely by working out of a relative's kitchen. @laurenjohnston
Lauren Johnstonby Miles Kenyon -
Jennifer and Lauren-- thank you both for joining us today!
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Hi Miles! Thanks so much for inviting me to join today, happy to be here! -
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Jennifer, you’re a meteorologist for the Storm Report. Can you briefly describe what real-time initiatives you do?
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The Storm Report provides weather for radio stations across the US. If you hear traffic and weather together on your local radio station, we may be your weather voice.
We also have an active twitter account @thestormreport where we provide coverage of all things weather.
We link that twitter account to our National Blog that is on our web site and during bigger severe weather events, we have our twitter pulling into the blog, along with other automation of weather information and we provide enhanced coverage there as well of additional images, analysis, etc.
We also branching out to provide real time coverage using the Scribble platform on a more local level. We have a local blog for WKRK our radio affiliate in Murphy, NC. -
So, basically, you're a leader in providing real-time weather coverage on both a national and local level?
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You got it. We monitor weather not only in the US but across the Globe. We have provided real time information on several events this year including Super Typhoon Haiyan. And we provide information to Murphy, NC who doesn't have a local TV station. We combine efforts with the radio station to help provide life saving info to the public.
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When we chatted earlier today, you described you and your team as "social-meteorologists" which I love. Can you explain what you mean by that?
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Based on everything we've been talking about so far, reader participation seems to be a key element when covering these events. What exactly do they bring to the conversation?
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Both of our hurricane blogs have become dialogues with our readers - and in both cases our readers have become reporters. I will dig up some example from our Sandy blog, but our experience was a lot like what Tim describes below. We had a period of isolation - we lost our Daily News CMS and our work email, so it took a while to reconnect with Daily News reporters.
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That first night, a few reporters jumped in on the blog with me from afar, along with our social media editor, and we combed Twitter and Facebook for photos and neighborhood updates. We saw very early reports of the blaze that destroyed more than 100 homes in Breezy Point by following tweets from firefighters and residents in that area.
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The readers are my local weather observers! I will spill the beans and say, I don't live in Murphy, NC :)....I live in Georgia and technology is great and I have weather information at my fingertips but I need the public to help convey what is happening on the ground. I ask folks to SAFELY let me know what they are seeing, how are their roads (are they icy, snow covered), how much rain are they seeing. That info helps the community as a whole.
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Of course, verification can become an issue. For example, we saw several photos from readers of sort of explosion and certain streets that appeared to be several feet under water, but we couldn't confirm where they were or what the blast was so we held onto those images until we had official verification. We also asked readers to send us photos of their neighborhoods with street signs clearly visible ... while also telling them not to put themselves in any danger, of course.
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Yes, Jen and I said the same thing at the same time - in severe weather readers are very willing to share information and images and video of what they are seeing, but it's key to remind them to stay safe!
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Absolutely! The whole point of these liveblogs is to make sure people stay safe!
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If you just got word that NYC was about to get an unprecedented 10 feet of snow before nightfall, how would you prep to tell this story?
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Before nightfall! That news would basically allow for NO prep time Miles! That said, now that we've had a few emergency weather experiences, we now have a sort of live blog action plan.
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For me.....I would probably have a HUGE weather geek moment and flip out and THEN I would start with the bigger picture: What is happening from a meteorological perspective? Where is the storm coming from? How is it tracking? And then start honing in on the advisories for the NYC area from the National Weather Service and start pinpointing timing and totals. I would follow my new friend Lauren and find out from a news perspective what is going on, what are local officials saying, etc and try to convey that information the best I could.
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We've hosted several live events since our Sandy blog - that blog was the first one to incorporate most of the newsroom staff, and it was by necessity. That was the first exposure to Scribble for many of our reporters. Since then, we have trained as many as possible to use to tool. Many have the Scribble app on their phones. I have a standard "READY, SET, BLOG" how-to email I send to all-staff that has the name of the blog and the email addresses to use for posting. We try to appeal to all levels of Scribble comfort so we get maximum staff participation.
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We have a sort of "super user squad" who are trained to work as moderators. We would tell everyone to mobilize according to marching orders from their editors, would figure out who was covering which angles, would spread contact information for the moderators to all reporters. Our photo desk is trained to file art to the blogs too.
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I think the training efforts have been really key - it's important that the technology functions as a tool that makes the reporting and the storytelling easier - fast and fluid.
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During the main event, it would be all hands on deck to keep the information flowing to keep folks safe and to answer questions as they came our way.
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I just read Jen's response too, and I have already added The Storm Report to my list of weather experts to follow!
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Jennifer and Lauren, thank you both so much for joining us today! The next time extreme weather strikes, we can rest assured that you'll be keeping us safe by providing reliable, real-time updates.
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Thank you Miles for having us! And Lauren I look forward to working with you. We think very much alike in our coverage of these types of events.
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Thanks so much, Miles! It's been a pleasure to participate and I'm so happy to meet Jen/
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And if any readers are interested in following the current real-time Haiyan coverage, check out the Scribble Market.
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