Is it just me? Or do other Minnesotans think the national media gets a little overwrought whenever the East Coast or the South catches a little winter weather?
Sure they’ll pay lip service to torrential rains on the West Coast or a blizzard blowing across the Great Plains. They might even show a waiting area full of stranded travelers at the airport. Or a couple of jackknifed semis out on the Interstate.
But you can tell down deep, they don’t care. Their hearts aren’t in it. They’re just phoning the coverage in.
Let it snow nine or ten inches in New York or Washington, though. Watch how they cover that.
Reporters in color coordinated winter survival gear brave the elements to file breathless remotes from desolate and devastated locations like Central Park South or the National Mall. There’s panic in their voices. This is it. The end of civilization as we know it.
Atlanta storm coverage is even worse. But at least when it snows in Atlanta you’re treated to those amusing shots of southerners trying to drive in snow—or push cars out of those towering three inch drifts without having any idea about how to push cars.
Chicago, on the other hand, seems to be more Midwestern—like us. When a big storm blows in, they shrug it off and start digging out. That's Lake Shore Drive in the photo above. Did you hear Chicago complain?
It’s those darned East Coast media types. It can take six days for a storm to cross the continent. The storm can make life miserable from the Rockies to somewhere east of Pittsburgh. The East Coast types won’t pay any attention.
Only when a big storm longs to be a part of it, New York, New York, then and only then will they start spreading the word.
It will be as if the storm appeared out of nowhere. Right over their heads—as if it singled them out for the kind of punishment no one else in the world has ever received.
So I’d like to offer the following message to East Coast media types on behalf of Midwesterners everywhere—people who know from real snow and 80 below wind chills.
Suck it up, Buttercup. Quit your whining and deal with it. We did. And get ready. The way this winter is going, any day now, we’ll have to deal with it all over again.
