The fickle forecast of a Meteorologist
On September 14th, 2019, meteorologist and reporter Michelle Kennedy was on the air throughout the night, in order to broadcast the incoming dangers of Hurricane Florence.
Kennedy has worked at station WXII12 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for 18 years. On that same evening in September, Kennedy had planned to take the evening off for her son Cody’s birthday, who was turning eight.
“Weather events present the challenges of always being ready to go on the air,” said Kennedy. “It didn’t matter that I had planned to take the day off.”
She missed the birthday as well as the party on the day after. However, Kennedy has worked in broadcast news for her entire career since 1995. She studied Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland at College Park College of Journalism.
In an interview, Kennedy said that she knew she wanted to go into broadcast since the second grade when she met Jackie Robinson, a TV news anchor in Syracuse, New York.
“I loved the idea of asking questions and getting to find out more about people’s lives,” said Kennedy.
Since college, Kennedy worked in many different aspects of the field including as a photojournalist and an editor, but meteorologist has been her favorite.
“My favorite part of the job is the blend of science and storytelling,” said Kennedy. “My job has allowed me to experience a wide variety of people and places as well.”
The job however does not come without challenges, especially for Kennedy who has two boys, Cody and Dawson.
“The schedule is never predictable. and I can be called on air on a moment’s notice,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy also talked about the changes in the industry that she’s seen. Since the 2007 financial crisis, she said that the reporting and sales staff dropped significantly as well as the quantity of news reporting.
The television ratings system has also taken a setback as more viewers are moving away from local broadcast outlets. However there have been exciting changes, especially for meteorology.
“We have had significant advancements in prediction models that are enhancing our forecasting with greater accuracy and timing,” said Kennedy.
Looking forward, Kennedy predicted that fewer local television stations will survive, with the biggest changes in no more investigative local series since they cost too much time to prepare.
For students looking to go into broadcast, Kennedy gave some good advice. She said she would urge students to learn all aspects of the industry. Understanding different perspectives such as photojournalism and editing have helped her when she writes and preps for a story.
“Many reports and anchors are now shooting on digital cameras and are expected to edit their own work,” she said. “They are known as multimedia journalists and are becoming more common.”
