Especially when it’s Al Roker
Hell hath no fury like Al Roker, apparently. The jovial Today Show weather man and network institution let New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio have it on Twitter yesterday, after the newly elected mayor waited to make a decision on closing schools.
This comes just a few months after Roker blasted the mayor of Atlanta and Governor of Georgia for their poor planning leading up to the January 29th storm. I wrote about that poor decision-making and apologies from city and regional leaders that felt too little too late here.
But in New York the gloves came off on Twitter.
DeBlasio responded to Roker’s tweet during a press conference where he basically insulted an entire group of people who are up round the clock studying the weather.
Then, Al hit back with this Tweet, defending the National Weather Service, and his pal Willie Geist chimed in.
THEN Al tweeted his “own” forecast about DeBlasio’s political future as a one-term Mayor, which he later apologized for.
The weather guys don’t always get it right, but the National Weather Service does not mess around with predicting major storms. We all love to hate on the weather guy – until we realize that they’re actually, generally, mostly right.
Lessons learned:
— Don’t mess with Al Roker. This is the man who has stood outside in countless hurricanes and blizzards and doesn’t miss a beat. He’s basically a wartime correspondent.
— Blame the weather. Don’t blame a forecast that scientists have publicly predicted and attempted to warn you against.
— Don’t fight a losing war on Twitter because it’ll get you nowhere. See our list of Twitter Realities.
— Seriously, don’t cross Al Roker.
Kate Venne is the Director of Public Relations at Capstone National Partners. If you’re interested in media training, contact Kate to find out more.
Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The views in this blog post represent the viewpoints of individual team members, not Capstone National Partners as a whole.
