How’s the weather?
Each day, we hear about the deep cuts to the federal government made by President Donald Trump and his chainsaw-carrying right-hand man Elon Musk. And each day, we hear about how those cuts impact not just those who might have lost their jobs, but everyday Americans like you and me. They might even be about things that we take for granted and assumed would always be there. Like the weather report.
My Poynter colleague Angela Fu has a new piece out: “The source behind your local weather report is facing cuts. Meteorologists are sounding the alarm.”
Fu writes in her story about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and how critical it is to meteorology and forecasting in our country. It’s also one of the agencies seeing cuts.
I asked Fu about her story. Here’s a brief Q&A with her from Tuesday:
Tom Jones: What are meteorologists saying about how these cuts at NOAA could affect the accuracy and timeliness of the weather forecasts people rely on?
Angela Fu: NOAA provides much of the data that powers the weather forecasts people get, so meteorologists are worried that continued cuts could disrupt that flow of information. If NOAA is collecting less data, then local meteorologists have less information to consult when creating the forecasts, which could affect accuracy.
Jones: I know some of the meteorologists that you talked to said they haven’t felt any negative impacts on their day-to-day work because of the DOGE cuts so far, but are they expecting these cuts to start affecting the forecasts viewers see at home?
Fu: The meteorologists I spoke to said that they’ve heard from employees within NOAA who are trying to maintain the agency’s work even as staffing is cut, essentially doing more with less. But they worry that if the cuts continue, NOAA might reach a breaking point, at which point the forecasts viewers see could be affected.
Jones: If NOAA were to go away or have its work severely compromised, is there an organization, maybe a private one, that could replace it? Or is it a case that if NOAA’s work is greatly limited, weather forecasts would just take a hit across the board?
Fu: According to the meteorologists I spoke to, the latter. NOAA’s work is pretty comprehensive. They have 122 offices across the country, and they, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, collect weather observations 24/7 at hundreds of airports. As one expert put it, NOAA is “the backbone of meteorology for the entire country.” All of the meteorologists I spoke to rely heavily on NOAA’s work to do their own jobs. That’s especially true during severe weather since NOAA is in charge of determining what counts as severe weather and when warnings or watches should be issued.
Jones: Last question, and it’s not an easy one: How concerned should the average person be about all this?
Fu: It’s hard to say because we don’t know the exact scope of the cuts or where they will stop. NOAA is reportedly trying to lay off another 1,000 people. NOAA has also rehired people who were recently cut. We do know that staffing shortages have already caused NOAA to pull back on some of its weather data collection. Meteorologists find that concerning, and it’s hard to imagine the situation improving if NOAA’s staffing continues to shrink.
My thanks to Angela. Now let’s continue with the newsletter …
Behaving badly
The New York Times’ Katie Robertson and Benjamin Mullin are reporting that The New Yorker cut ties with art critic Jackson Arn after complaints about his behavior at the magazine’s 100th-anniversary party in February.
Robertson and Mullin wrote that Arn “was accused of making inappropriate overtures to some of the attendees and appeared intoxicated at the celebration, according to the two people, one of whom witnessed his actions.”
Arn joined The New Yorker in 2023. He declined comment when reached by the Times.
Meanwhile …
Here’s more from the story of a well-known, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who left his positions as the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop and as an associate professor of journalism at American University in Washington. Last week, Columbia Journalism Review’s Sewell Chan and Betsy Morais broke the news of how Wesley Lowery, formerly of The Washington Post and CBS News, stepped down following, CJR wrote, “a number of complaints against him, according to former colleagues, including at least three Title IX allegations, in which he was accused of improper behavior with colleagues and female students.”
CJR went on to write, “Lowery, in an interview with CJR, acknowledged that three complaints had been filed but said that the university never reached out to him as part of an investigation. He insisted that he did nothing wrong and said that he left his job voluntarily to return to reporting and writing.”
Then on Tuesday, The Washington Post had this story: “Star journalist Wesley Lowery faced Title IX complaints before leaving American University.” What’s interesting is that the story was written by Will Sommer, who left the Post earlier this month to join The xxxxxx. So it would appear that Sommer was working on a story about Lowery before news broke last week that Lowery was stepping down.
In fact, Sommer wrote in the Post story, “His resignation came after The Post asked him and the university about complaints from students, professors and IRW’s partner journalists about his behavior.”
Sommer’s story has a few extra details and allegations that were not in the CJR story. Sommer wrote in his piece, “In an interview last week, a day before his exit was announced, Lowery denied the allegations made in the complaints. He said he was only contacted about one of the complaints, after the Title IX office declined to take it up. ‘I have never been under Title IX investigation,’ he said.”
Lowery also told the Post, “I’ve got a very clear track record of opening doors for people and never doing anything to close doors on anyone. That doesn’t excuse any behavior that makes anyone uncomfortable or causes any harm.”
Thanks but no thanks
