I Hate The Local News.
Here's a list of stories my local news is covering tonight:
1. Death of Sonny Montgomery, influential senator from Mississippi.
2. Suicide attack in Iraq that killed 19 people.
3. Man's emotional reaction after viewing new 9/11 security tape.
4. Moving of Jackson Police Precinct 3.
5. New shopping mall in Ridgeland.
6. Man charged with sexual assault in Byram.
Guess which story they ran first? No. 3. The only story that didn't contain "hard" news of any sort whatsoever. I thought the job of news agencies was to deliver information to the masses. Apparently it's unimportant that a dangerous man was stalking a city, a famous state politician died, or that a large amount of people disappeared and died in the blink of an eye. At least, not as important as a man watching a tape from over four years ago.
Note: I'm in no way belittling the man's emotions- but a news station is not the appropriate vehicle for this situation. I believe Oprah or other such fare would be more appropriate. (One doesn't expect Oprah to deliver a five-minute news update, do we?)
They could have spent those few opening minutes covering the other stories in greater detail, and the average viewer would have been better served.
My guess is that news stations used to consistently deliver the news. However, in order to gain an edge, they started rolling out "human interest" or "puff" pieces to be digested by the sympathetic public. Pretty soon everyone else followed suit, and hard news fell by the wayside.
I wish a news station around here would reverse the trend and start investigating and digging into the old-fashioned truth for a change, instead of focusing on individual reactions and quirky snippets that do little to inform their audience. That station would gain an edge.
1. Death of Sonny Montgomery, influential senator from Mississippi.
2. Suicide attack in Iraq that killed 19 people.
3. Man's emotional reaction after viewing new 9/11 security tape.
4. Moving of Jackson Police Precinct 3.
5. New shopping mall in Ridgeland.
6. Man charged with sexual assault in Byram.
Guess which story they ran first? No. 3. The only story that didn't contain "hard" news of any sort whatsoever. I thought the job of news agencies was to deliver information to the masses. Apparently it's unimportant that a dangerous man was stalking a city, a famous state politician died, or that a large amount of people disappeared and died in the blink of an eye. At least, not as important as a man watching a tape from over four years ago.
Note: I'm in no way belittling the man's emotions- but a news station is not the appropriate vehicle for this situation. I believe Oprah or other such fare would be more appropriate. (One doesn't expect Oprah to deliver a five-minute news update, do we?)
They could have spent those few opening minutes covering the other stories in greater detail, and the average viewer would have been better served.
My guess is that news stations used to consistently deliver the news. However, in order to gain an edge, they started rolling out "human interest" or "puff" pieces to be digested by the sympathetic public. Pretty soon everyone else followed suit, and hard news fell by the wayside.
I wish a news station around here would reverse the trend and start investigating and digging into the old-fashioned truth for a change, instead of focusing on individual reactions and quirky snippets that do little to inform their audience. That station would gain an edge.
posted by Yorick at 8:05 PM
1 Comments:
I have been composing a similar post in my mind about this very topic. (Exams getting in the way of me writing it). This is something that has been making me REALLY ANGRY lately. Here in Boston, we had the trial for the band manager who set off fire works in the night club and all those people died. We had about 10 minutes per NIGHT of the families of the deceased giving their speeches for the sentencing hearing. For 3 nights in a row.
News that is designed for nothing other than an emotional response -- whether pity, sadness or FEAR are useless to me.
I also have noticed that cnn.com is playing the same game more and more lately. Oftentimes, their "headlines" are human interest/emotion stories instead of real news.
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