Managing News Coverage of Weather-related Risks in Iranian TV

The present study aims to shed lights on the way "climate-related usual and disastrous events" are forecast by Iran Meteorological Organization and how they are covered by IRIB. This research is carried out through a "content analysis" of news items broadcast various provincial newscasts as well as Channel One's 21:00 newscast and IRINN's 13:00 newscast during Persian years of 1393, 1394 and 1395. The results of each newscast have been compared. For practical aims, as survey was conducted and the views of meteorological experts as well as news editors-in-chief with regard to the way weather-related news events are managed were gathered consequently. The findings indicated that the rhetoric and terminology used in almost half of the weather reports on dangerous and disastrous events were not "sensitizing and warning". 22 percent of critical events were not forecast in the Meteorological Organization's announcement and 33 percent of weather reports were not consistent with the organization's forecast announcements. In 92.5 percent of weather reports, no experts and employers-at-risk were interviewed for training implications. The forecasts of 58.5 percent of dangers were reflected as usual weather events with low priority at the end of newscasts and with the same amount of time (55 percent of weather reports on usual events and 47 on critical events lasted from one to two minutes). Literature review shows that no other study has been carried out on the subject in IRIB. Therefore, the present research is a new and innovative.