Soupspoon wrote:UK weather presenters have tended to be dedicated Met Office employees, at least historically upon the BBC (TV and radio set pieces).
That... kind of feels like it's going too far in the other direction. I'd rather just give the shy ones their Met Office jobs so the attention-craving ones can focus on broadcasting. You can always fire them if they stray too far from the facts; there's a whole crop of graduates with a background in this stuff.
Shallow as the west's weather broadcasting is, it's not necessarily shallow in the same ways you'd think. "Good looks and charm" are, to say it mathematician-style... "neither necessary nor sufficient." They weren't enough for me, even with several weather-related physics courses under my belt on top of that. They hired some of my classmates to work in forecast offices at the studio (instead of, you know, leaving forecasting to the public sector that is accountable to the voters) and though they got some air time, they didn't get anywhere near as much airtime as the old people with journalism backgrounds instead of ones in meteorology. Guess viewers prefer "looks wise" over "looks cute and actually IS wise" after all, because I seriously doubt there's any shortage of cute young journalism majors clamoring for those jobs if they actually wanted them. (Though frankly, they shouldn't. First priority should be for them to know what they're talking about; how to talk about it depends on the channel.)
Still, you wouldn't think it, to look at the irrationality of almost everyone who's ever downplayed the role of "good looks and charm."
