the kicker

Breaking: Tamron Hall’s Boyfriend Stranded in Chicago

One rule of good journalistic story-telling: make it personal. Tell the news in a way that makes people feel it in their guts. Tamron Hall, anchoring...
December 19, 2008

One rule of good journalistic story-telling: make it personal. Tell the news in a way that makes people feel it in their guts.

Tamron Hall, anchoring MSNBC Live, just took that truism perhaps just a smidge too literally. Hall, discussing the snowstorm currently buffeting New York City–a storm that’s resulted in flight cancellations and delays at all three metro airports–explained to the millions of people tuning in to the cable network’s broadcast how she has been personally touched by the storm: Hall’s boyfriend, she informed us all, can’t make it to NYC to visit her. He is currently stuck in Chicago.

Thanks, Tamron: right in the gut.

Megan Garber is an assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. She was formerly a CJR staff writer.