What is Team Smotherage?
1.
phenomena in TV news when a station has multiple reporters all assigned to the same story and promotes it as "team coverage" when the story really isn't significant enough to merit that much coverage.
"...we have live team coverage of Paris Hilton's wild night on the town..." (team smotherage)
"Gas prices continue to climb...so how are drivers coping? We have live team coverage...reporter Joe Fancy is at a Chevron station, Linda Pretty is right across the street from Joe at an Exxon station with motorists there, and Amanda Perky is across town at another service station. We'll start with Joe..." (team smotherage)
Tease: "Rain in the forecast...we'll have live team coverage of this approaching summer storm."
See