Press Talk: TV folks blowin’ in the wind

Oh wait! There would be no cheese. (I’ll miss you, Pecorino Romano.) And I guess there would also be no rats. No vermin. Well, I’m betting Clark County Environmental Services Director Don Benton would still be around. He’s able to survive anything. And here’s the big bonus: With absolutely no environment to oversee, he’d finally be qualified for his $100,000-a-year county job.

But I digress. Let’s get back to the weather. Here’s a little-known fact: TV was invented because those weather personalities needed to find a job.

None of them, I’m told, wanted to be skin-care specialists or lumberjacks. So some guy that knew a little about tubes and wiring built the first TV.

Then guys like Rob Marciano got in front of a camera. Remember Rob? He was chief meteorologist for KATU in Portland for a few years. Then he went big time and landed at CNN in Atlanta. From there, he had a stint co-anchoring “Entertainment Tonight.” That gig didn’t work out, but he landed as a weather guy on ABC national news.

Rob is part of an ABC weather team headed by Ginger Zee. Ginger spends much of her time on “Good Morning, America.”

OK, let’s be honest. Ginger and Rob both are bright and qualified. Sure, they’re easy on the eyes, but you don’t last long on TV if that’s all you are. These guys are good. They have the weather chops, and I regularly watch them.

I was thinking a lot about weather this week, because the mother of all storms was being predicted for the Northeast. It was leading all the national newscasts.

Yes, it fizzled a bit, but I was interested. So I kept up by watching Ginger and Rob and other ABC types.

But I noticed something off-kilter, something not quite right. While the rest of the gaggle of weather reporters was facing down the storm — kicking snow with their boots — Ginger was in the cozy, warm confines of the ABC studios.

And this — as anybody who keeps track of such things knows — is completely against TV weather protocol!

In fact, I’m pretty sure a decree was issued in 1989 stating that if more than a drizzle was present, all TV weather types had to be out in it. No excuses.

Apparently we — as viewers — love to see their faces pummeled by hail and ice and wind.

I mean, who can forget Al Roker hanging onto a pole by his fingernails as he did his weather forecast from the eye of a hurricane?

Come on, Ginger!

Being a reporter type myself, I had to ask. So I sent out a tweet:

“Ginger Zee in the office when there’s big weather out there?: What the …”

And to my pleasant surprise, Ginger tweeted back:

“I’ll be out in it tomorrow. I begged to go out, but they wanted the big pic from inside.”

Well Ginger, you now have a fan for life. And true to her word, Ginger was in it the next day. In fact, she walked to work. Admittedly, there wasn’t a lot of weather going on in New York City at the time. But what there was, she was in it.

So here’s a shout-out to Ginger and Rob and all my TV friends who get out in it. Just because. And here’s to the rest of us who appreciate the weather — wind and all — for what it is. Because we now know what the alternative is.

Dead.