Author's response.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:.)(television weathercasters)

First, thanks for the opportunity to respond to the two articles appearing in this issue of National Weather Digest that are following up on my study appearing here in Dec. 2006-"Seals of (Dis)approval: Television Weathercasters Debate the Value of Voluntary Credentials."

I'm glad to see new research being conducted on the important role television weathercasters play in our society. As my paper concluded, good places to begin to find about more about attitudes towards the AMS and NWA seals are with news directors and the audience. I'm not surprised to see the findings of these 104 news directors who say they prefer the AMS seal as that as what I've often seen in ads and heard in conversations, or that a seal is not "the most important criterion for hiring." What's especially illuminating as new data in this paper ("Comments on Seals of Approval") is how strongly news directors agree that they would "hire experienced (weathercasters) without the ability to earn the seals."

I think this study is a good place to start in exploring the range of attitudes news directors have about the seals, but as the authors note this study has a very low response rate (13%) and it is dangerous to extrapolate to the larger universe, but still an ambitious beginning. The data referenced from a 1992 M.S. thesis about audience reactions to the seals also suffers from a low response rate (16%), but I appreciate the new citation and will add it to my summer reading and reference it for future research. I think so much has changed in both the media ...