by Matt St. Amand

Created on: September 13, 2009

The local news has lost its mind. Channel 4 in Detroit actually now calls itself "Rescue 4", as though they'll get your cat out of a tree, resuscitate someone's dying grandmother, or do Blackwater duty guarding dignitaries. At least once per broadcast an urgent-eyed anchor leads into a commercial break promising to later divulge information "that will help keep your family safe!" Which usually amounts to advice on par with, "Don't drink toilet cleaner, it's not healthy!" or "Double A batteries - they're not a snack!"

Since when is it the duty of local news to look after the safety of a community? Don't police, fire and ambulance services take care of that?

This false netting of "safety" is nowhere as intrusive, overblown, ridiculous or boobery-born than the local weather report. Not only does the weather report take up entirely too much of any broadcast, but it has the most atrocious, misplaced tone of drama and even suspense injected into it. Particularly during winter. The approach of snow storms in Michigan are treated like plagues, like great mishaps, as though volcanic ash was going to fall upon naked citizen who have no skin.

Snow is the new asbestos. Snowfall is reported like meteor showers about to thit the earth; like nuclear fall-out approaching.

For most of my life, it's just been snow. Children play in it. Snow is like dust, except it melts.

In the hands of "Rescue 4," snow is airborne maggots carrying bird flu; each flake is a tiny albino terrorist powered in anthrax. But not to fear! "Rescue 4" will throw its cloak around every viewer and escort us through the nightmare. "Just close your eyes and think of Christmas," says the paternalistic stentorian voice.

Maybe some of these weather guys were pummeled with snowballs or subjected to snow-baths as youths - the schoolyard version of water-boarding - and for this reason report snowfall like the coming of an area-wide yeast infection. Possibly, I'm being too Jungian in my analysis. Whatever the reason, our perpetually amped-up media cannot be trusted anymore to even provide a basic weather report. There are numerous cases where a crippling storm was predicted and unremarkable amount of snow actually fell. I can just see the advertisers leaning on station managers to "sex" things up. "Whaddya mean it's going to rain?" an advertiser rails over the phone to a station minion. "I'm paying you people enough money to throw in an 'alert' or 'warning' or 'watch'. Get your heads out of your asses and scare people! I'm not selling enough vinyl-sided windows!"

Hence, "Rescue 4", the winged firetruck with its air-raid siren blaring, red-blue-yellow lights flashing like a nervous breakdown, driving in circles with its ladders and hoses and mounted guns casting lunatic shadows across the storybook covering of winter snow in Detroit.

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