Weather fatigue

Weathering the ongoing weather story: It’s hot. It’s July. Is that news? We wonder. Yet people continually demand coverage of it. Editor Steve Smith asks in his blog, what does the public want on this topic?

Meanwhile, at the table this morning a weather story by Jessica Meyers led off the discussion. It was a tough assignment on a well-covered topic which didn’t fully develop until later in the day. “Breaking July weather?” quipped one staffer. Not much other discussion of the paper.

A question was raised whether it was “piling on” to have two columns (Doug Clark, Hot Potatoes) picking on a quote (maybe out of context) by Fourth of July protester Zach St. John. It should be noted that Clark’s column runs in the news section but Hot Potatoes appears on the opinion page and is edited by a separate group of editors. Smith said he had no issue with the treatment, saying St. John put himself into the public spotlight and he’s an adult.