TV reporters get punished by Hurricane Sandy

By Patrick Kevin Day

Oct. 30, 2012 12 AM PT

The wall-to-wall TV coverage of Hurricane Sandy’s approach and landfall on Monday was an opportunity for many on-air reporters to put on rain slickers and get themselves out in the storm. While cameras could have easily been positioned to give viewers a view of the storm, it made for more dramatic television to have the reporters positioned actually standing out in the midst of the wind and rain, describing the wind and rain to viewers.

While the storm and its aftermath were anything but trivial, with death and destruction across several states, the TV coverage sometimes drifted into the absurd, with the reporters intentionally putting themselves in harm’s way and locals occasionally popping up to mock them.

Local ABC affiliates up and down the East Coast sent reporters out to the shoreline to face the storm and they battled gross sea foam, sand in the mouth and the loss of multiple hats.

Meanwhile on CNN, reporter Ali Velshi was positioned in the middle of an Atlantic City, N.J., street where he battled harsh winds and also a few video bombing locals who decided to do a little soft shoe in the background of his live shot.