CNN
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An Iowa sportswriter has gone viral for verbally complaining after he was asked to cover for a weather reporter during a snowstorm.
Mark Woodley, sports reporter for CNN affiliate KWWL, A video was posted on Twitter on Thursday That pieced together some of his grievances as a weatherman.
“I usually do sports and everything is canceled here for the next few days,” says a sarcastic Woodley in the video, standing outside snow-covered Waterloo, Iowa. “So, what better time to ask the athletes to come in, come out in the snow and the cold, and tell everyone else not to do it, than about five hours before his usual wake-up time?”
“I’m used to these 30-minute evening shows, and usually on those shows I’m in,” he said in another segment. “It’s a really long show, so it’s gradually getting weirder and weirder watching me over the next few hours.”
“Can I go back to work normally?” He whined for a while longer. “I’m pretty sure you guys added an extra hour to this one just because someone likes to torture me.”
Woodley said he “didn’t even realize” the channel had a 3.30am slot — he didn’t find out he’d be covering it until the night before.
As a result, he only slept for about three hours before being sent into the storm.
“If I only got eight hours of sleep, I probably wouldn’t say some of those things,” he joked in an interview with CNN on Friday.
Woodley said his sarcastic remarks were “just a part of me.”
“We cover these things every year, it’s the same thing, and I think sometimes the audience tunes it out, and I think if I show a little attitude about it, the audience pays attention,” he said. “This is a very serious storm,” he said, stressing the importance of “making sure people know what they need to do to be safe.”
Fortunately, Woodley’s managers approve of his on-air attitude.
“At least now they agree,” he said. He explained that his off-the-cuff remarks were only a small fraction of his overall on-air time.
“It was my sister-in-law who said ‘you gotta tweet,'” he said. “I put it on Twitter thinking 20 or 30 people would see this and my managers wouldn’t care, it wasn’t going anywhere. Within hours I had texts like this, Like, ‘Dude, you’re going viral and Judd Apatow retweeted you.’”
“It’s crazy,” he added.
Woodley said the video was “interesting,” although “there was some truth to it.”
“I think every journalist who has done this wants to speak out,” he said.
As for fans’ calls for him to switch from sports to weather? “That was an absolute nightmare for me,” he said. “We’re kind of short-staffed, like every newsroom in this country, and that’s why I’m in this situation.
“I’m a team player,” he continued. “If asked, of course, I’d do it, but it’s an absolute nightmare for me. I pray to God they don’t ask me to do it again.”