Mr. Rod Arquette
Program Director
KIRO Radio
1820 Eastlake Avenue East
Seattle, Wa
Dear Mr. Arquette,
Please accept my suggestion in the spirit in which it is offered - a sincere effort to improve your on-air broadcast product.
Many of your news anchors seem to misuse some common terms to describe the weather. Just this morning I heard someone in your newsroom glumly describing the "partly cloudy" morning but perk up at the forecast that later today would improve to "partly sunny."
Is he not hearing what he is saying? If it is only "partly cloudy" in the morning then it is actually mostly sunny. And his excitement over the "partly sunny" weather coming later should be tempered by an understanding that he means it will be mostly cloudy.
This bad media habit of sometimes saying the opposite of what is meant reminds me of the exasperating expression used to describe two airplanes that fly too closely to each other. The reporter often refers to this near hit as a "near miss."
Old business: I wrote to your predecessor last year requesting that your news anchors stop referring to "warmer" and "colder" temperatures as well. Since a temperature is a number used to describe the weather, it can only be higher or lower. Weather can certainly be warmer or colder though and that certainly makes more sense. I'm revisiting the point in this letter because the error still occurs on 710 KIRO several times a day.
Thank you for your time in reading this note and my best wishes to you and your staff,
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