Top Story: Ice on the Roads in February!

Last night the weather was the top story.  It basically snowed all day yesterday, we ended up with about 6 inches of snow in SE Michigan.

First:  WXYZ always has their reporters out in some godforsaken place at 11 o'clock at night, to give "live" reports from some location where nothing is happening.   Usually this is because it happened hours ago.  Why these people have to go and stand out in the cold, in the middle of the night, for something that isn't happening anymore, is one of the great mysteries of Detroit news.

Second:  For whatever reason, the reporters are always standing outside -- you never see them indoors, ever!  They're never IN city hall or IN the court house or IN the hospital -- it's always "Live OUTSIDE of Wayne County Courthouse," or in front of a house that burned down during the afternoon,  or at some intersection where a child was run over by an SUV.  Point is, whatever happened is long over with, but the WXYZ reporters are still out there.

Third:  All top stories must have something to do with cars (traffic tie-ups, construction on "The Lodge," bad driving conditions, big accidents, or huge auto industry layoffs), arson, murder, or violent crime.  IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS  -- that is THE rule of journalism here for sure.  An armed robbery at a 7/11 in Hamtramck is always gonna be the lead story, no matter how many millions of dollars Kwame Kilpatrick steals from the city.

So anyway, last night's Top Story:  Cheryl Chodun, one of WXYZ's 2 female reporters who is ALWAYS outside at night, standing in front of a cyclone fence over the highway:  "It was kind of hit or miss on the major freeways tonight, you'd just be going along -- and then there'd be an icy spot."

Then a male reporter talking about damaged power lines -- to give you the idea that crews had to shut off the power to repair, they make the screen go black for 5 seconds.

Bad stationary-cam shot of a freeway in the dark, with flashing lights to one side -- "Looks like somebody slid off there or got themselves turned around."

Then finally, good news!  "Wayne County's supply of salt is holding up at a hefty 130 tons" -- woo hoo!

(Not that they use it:  One interesting thing about Detroit is they don't plough the roads here till there's at least 6 inches of snow.  I don't know if this is a budget thing or what, but it's insane.  In Cook County (Chicago), they get 6 *flakes* of snow and the ploughs are out.  There's a very good historical reason for that which I won't go into right now -- Point is, SE Michigan REALLY needs to get its snow removal act together.  What is up with not ploughing??  New Jersey has way better salt/sand/plough procedures than this place, and gets like 1/10th the freakin weather!)