Since the weather seems to be a popular topic, let’s dip into that (frozen) well once again.

I like weather reports. Besides the “shared community” feeling, since we all experience weather, they tend to be a respite in the midst of a stream of depressing news. These days, television news stations seek out personable, educated meteorologists, lending an added credibility.

But that credibility is starting to be stretch a bit due to news hype.

How often do we click on the nightly news and hear words like “scandal” and “threat” and even “terror,” all aimed at generating viewer interest? Sometimes those terms are accurate; often, though, they’re aimed at presenting controversy where little or no controversy exists. Sadly, such hype has crept into weather reporting.

Let’s start with the bizarre decision in 2011 by the Weather Channel to start naming winter storms, as traditionally done for hurricanes. TWC argues that naming a storm makes it easier for people to track and prepare; every other weather agency calls it self-serving, a way to hype coverage.

(As a Star Trek fan, though, I confess I enjoyed shaking my fist at a particular storm and shouting, “Kha-a-a-a-a-n-n-n!”)

While most news outlets eschew official names for storms, they aren’t above coming up with creative unofficial titles like “Frankenstorm” or “October Fury” or “Stormageddon” (not to be confused with the “Dark Lord of All”).

Then there are the live reports, where news team members are dispatched to exotic locales like the parking lot so that viewers can see, yes, it’s raining/snowing.

While such hype is mostly just annoying, there’s an argument that overblown weather reporting dulls viewers’ reactions to real weather threats. “After a handful of overhyped weather patterns, people in the danger zones of an oncoming storm may start to assume that the Weather Channel is selling wolf tickets, so to speak,” writes Chris Opfer at howstuffworks.com. “Also called the ‘availability heuristic,’ this phenomenon has been attributed to many victims of Katrina, whom after years of hype and misses, simply believed the storm would pass them by once again.”

I know what Opfer means. When the tornado sirens go off in my neighborhood, my wife wisely heads for the basement while I go outside to look.

Meteorologists serve an important role in keeping us informed of threatening weather. As such, they need to be free of the pressure to overblow what they report—as is true with all forms of news reporting.

The Weather Channel is playing an interesting PR card after being yanked by satellite provider DirecTV: the risk to public safety.

“The Weather Channel isn’t just another TV network. It is a must-have resource that keeps families safe,” TWC wrote on its website. A letter from the station’s well-known meteorologist, Jim Cantore, accuses DirecTV of “deny[ing] their viewers access to critical and potentially life-saving information in times of severe weather.”

The station even went so far as to urge its fans to write or call their Congressional representatives.

TWC was dropped by DirecTV on Jan. 14 due to a dispute over fees the satellite provider pays to carry The Weather Channel. This has become a regular occurrence between stations and cable or satellite providers; usually the two sides settle as viewers decry the loss of a favorite channel.

But the dispute between TWC and DirecTV is certainly climbing to the upper echelon of rancor. And while The Weather Channel’s argument seems ludicrous on its face—this is, after all, the station that devotes as much airtime to eccentric people setting themselves on fire as it does reporting about actual weather—it appears to be resonating.

“The Weather Channel help prepare me for Hurricane Sandy,” wrote a viewer. “Without The Weather Channel, I wouldn't have made it through the storm.”

“TWC is a life-saving necessity for those of us who are in potential danger each year for 6 months of tropical storms,” another posted.

No word yet if Congress is being inundated with letters from terrified Americans who forgot they can get a weather report from their local TV or radio station.

The reality is that viewers are nodding at TWC’s claim not because they actually believe it, but because it serves their desire to get back a cherished TV channel. Like previous contract disputes, this one will be settled because viewers demand it, not because of any clear and present (weather) danger.

Back when I was a competitive runner, I kept an elaborate training log—daily mileage, speed, course details, weather conditions and maybe a comment on how I felt. A bar graph in the back followed my mileage from week to week, usually in the 40-to-50-mile range.

Age and workload have taken their toll. Now I run fewer miles, primarily for fitness. I still track workouts, but with far less formality: a wall calendar in the basement where I write my mileage or the occasional time trial result. Still, as I hung up the 2014 calendar last week, I felt that thrill I used to get when I cracked open a pristine training log. It’s a new year, an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and train better, faster and harder than ever before.

And each year, I conveniently forget that my first entries in the new calendar depended on the quality of the work recorded in the old one.

From a public relations perspective, it seems a lot of organizations have that same mindset.

As Warren Buffett once said, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. Companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Toyota have learned that hard lesson in recent years.

The problem lies in the divorce of reputation from moral character—what you are when no one’s looking. Sadly, a lot of organizations think reputation is managed by heartfelt mission statements and teary-eyed soundbites. The reality is, a reputation can’t be “fixed”; it must be slowly and carefully built with honest effort rooted in the highest ethical standards. This is true for corporate reputation as well as internal reputation of leadership to employees.

If the new year is a time for resolutions, let’s hope more organizations will take the long view, operating with high moral character every day and at every level, allowing that to lay the groundwork for reputation.

It may require a lot of miles and a lot of sweat, but the run will be worth it.