News coverage of major hurricanes, flash floods, extreme wildfires and other weather disasters often follows a familiar cadence.
Headlines announce catastrophic devastation. Death tolls are tallied. Questions are raised about what happened and how and, increasingly more often, why no one seemed to see it coming.
But weather has an even bigger story to tell. And as it becomes more extreme, more costly and impacts more people than ever, a local weather beat reporter could be a critical tool in keeping communities safe.
Instead of a reporter who drops in when a big storm hits, a full-time weather beat would be different: a journalist who connects the dots between daily forecasts, long-term climate trends, infrastructure gaps and government accountability, helping readers and communities prepare for not just what’s happening today but what might come tomorrow.
It’s not just about disasters
Sixty percent of people in the U.S. check their local weather forecast at least once a day, according to a 2023 poll from YouGov. Forecasts tell us what’s happening outside currently or will be in the near future.
“But there are all these other elements to weather that are really, really important,” said Kelly McBride, Poynter senior vice president and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership.
The cost of homeowners insurance, for example, is heavily dependent on local weather and climate. So is deciding what car to drive or what neighborhood might be safest. For many people, weather is critical to their health and their livelihoods. And when people want to make sense of those connections, they often turn first to local newsrooms.
“You really have to be able to answer the questions that consumers have,” McBride said, and that means going beyond whether to pack an umbrella.
The weather beat might be new, but it isn’t different
Neighborhoods in Sarasota County, Florida, that should have been safe from flooding were inundated last year after Tropical Storm Debby passed by offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
“People wanted investigations,” said Derek Gilliam, a reporter with the Sarasota-based Suncoast Searchlight. “They wanted to figure out what actually went wrong.”
Gilliam and Florida Trident reporter Michael Barfield took up the charge. Five months of reporting revealed shortfalls in critical stormwater and flood protection infrastructure that the county was responsible for, and now some changes are being made.
Gilliam said he and Barfield used the same skills any beat writer would when sleuthing out the story: copious reviews of public documents, dogged questioning of local officials, interviews with residents who were affected and consultations with outside experts. That’s why a weather beat isn’t a radical departure, but a logical extension of watchdog reporting. Just as education reporters track schools and city hall reporters track government, a weather reporter could track the policies, infrastructure and consequences of extreme weather.
“You should be addressing the issues that your community finds important,” Gilliam said. “And I don’t think there was an issue in Sarasota that the community cared more about than this.”
Holding local officials accountable before a disaster happens
More recently, questions linger over whether anyone in the Texas Hill Country could have done more to prevent the deaths of at least 119 people in the July 4 floods.
But no one was beating the drum before the disaster.
“People went to bed and they were expecting a rainstorm, and they woke up and their house was floating down the river,” McBride said.
The tragedy is one example of how the presence of a local weather reporter might have made a difference.
“People are recognizing that they need information to be prepared, and that you take for granted that your government is going to be able to handle these things,” McBride said. “And we’ve just had so many experiences where that’s actually not true.”
Yet despite those lessons, very few newsrooms assign anyone to a dedicated weather beat.
Some use meteorologists to explain the weather, communicate the threat and cover the aftermath. But McBride said that’s not the same thing as a local journalist who can knock on doors, build sources and flesh out both problems and solutions.
“I want them to have public policy experience and I want them to have storytelling abilities and I want them to go beyond what we know about the weather,” she said.
Ready to cover future disasters, and help prevent them
Whether writing stories that help someone decide what kind of roofing materials to use in their home or grilling the local stormwater director, a weather beat reporter would learn the risks and weaknesses of their community before the next disaster strikes.
“They’re going to be better prepared to cover the run-up, to cover the aftermath and to do the accountability reporting,” McBride said.
Gilliam didn’t know much about complex stormwater infrastructure, hydrology or related issues before the Debby investigation. That learning curve is precisely why beats matter.
“Next time that there’s a flood I can pretty quickly have some additional questions I can ask just because of the knowledge that I gained in this last story,” he said.
With resources already spread thin, adding a new beat might seem like a luxury. Gilliam recommends getting creative.
Suncoast Searchlight, where he works, is a nonprofit. So is Florida Trident. The partnership between them is one example of how resources can be pooled to better serve the local community instead of split between dwindling competition.
“There’s just so much to cover that we really need to be collaborating,” Gilliam said.
As extreme weather grows more common and more costly, local residents are likely to have more questions about safety, infrastructure and accountability. A dedicated weather beat could help ensure those stories are covered consistently, not just after disaster strikes.
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