TV anchors’ millions.

TV anchors’ millions.

An obscure law of journalese requires TV anchors, in their teaser introduction, to report how many millions of Americans will be affected by a predicted storm, flood, forest fire or other catastrophe. How the anchors predict the number of millions is a trade secret. For example, Tom Lallas, of ABC News on May10, 2019, reported: “40 million people are bracing for extreme weather…” Amazing that knew that exactly 40 million, and not 39 million or 41 million, were bracing. Maybe only 40 million were around when ABC was counting.

File under: Teaser baloney.