Tuesday, January 16, 2007

local news

Does anyone agree with me that the local news is horrible? Tonight, after watching the Golden Globes and before I located the remote, I caught two small segments of "news" that pretty much sums up what the local stations think is newsworthy around here. I don't think I've ever watched a full half hour segment of the local news, so I'm certainly no expert, but from the few moments I've seen here and there I'm convinced that every news story comes from two main topics: crime and the weather.

The first several stories of tonight all had to do with some type of crime or tragedy, or a tragic crime -- two young boys who had been kidnapped, a teenage girl who had been hit by a truck, another young girl who was an accomplice to a murder. All these stories were shared in the first two minutes. I don't understand why the people who decide what stories get on the local news think that the people of Kansas City want to hear about this stuff. It seems to be all about sensationalism to me and I'm repulsed by it. Why can't they find some positive stories to talk about? There must be hundreds of people all over KC who do great things for other people every day. I want to hear those stories.

And then the pendulum swung to the other side of the coin of horrible journalism. Just before turning off the TV, we saw a clip about the ice and sleet that have been falling on KC the past few days. They actually showed a woman scraping ice off her car and flashed her name on the screen with the title "Ice Scraper" underneath it. WHAT?!? Is this for real? What idiot approved giving this unsuspecting woman the title of "Ice Scraper?" Is catching a woman on video scraping ice off her car seriously newsworthy? "Oh my goodnes John, will you look at that. That woman is scraping ice off of her car. That's fascinating. How does she do it?" C'mon people.

So is it just KC, or is the local news this bad in every city?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree more, Kristen. Although, to be fair, there is no police report or coroner report every time something good happens. Maybe good deeds are a little harder to report on.

"Ice Scraper"? Come on!

Unknown said...

local news should be watched purely for entertainment.

i stopped watching kc news after watching a story about a man who beat a woman with an aluminum bat because...she stole his crack cocaine.

ke said...

kansas city news seems professional compared to columbia news. they really have nothing to report on, so they try to make everything into a huge deal. so dramatic. clark actually doesn't let me watch the news- it makes me feel bad about the world.

Anonymous said...

Whitewater. That is all I am going to say. Kansas City is at least big city news. Wichita does have an edge with BTK however.

Anonymous said...

I would just like to add that one of the local anchor men has a much more pronounced lisp in person than on TV.

kimberly said...

especially channel 5, they are so trashy. you won't BELIEVE what we found out about this landlord and what he DOESN'T want you to know! we uncover all of his dirty secrets at 10.

NOT news.

Stephanie said...

Even though our local stations do a respectable job, I stopped watching the news (local and national) about a year ago. Every once in awhile I'll catch a little clip, and remember that it's just WAY too depressing for me.

If it's not in the newspaper then I don't need to know about it. Also, for some reason, reading the news isn't as depressing as watching it.

Anonymous said...

Yep, it's bad everywhere. Around here was read the newspaper. You can skip the unworthy articles.

mike said...

but you gotta love larry moore. he's so jolly. and hall of famer len dawson on sports? and the effervescent bryan busby calling the weather... that's what they call a dream team, friends.

Gail said...

Kansas City news is silly, but Los Angeles news is the absolute worst. SO sensationalized! And for some reason, no matter what time of day or night, you can find a car chase on at least one channel. My theory is that the LA news stations are trying to compete with ET or Extra.

Unknown said...

Matt and I make fun of how dramatic the weather is. "From the Kake-land weatherplex with our super digital doppler high definition viper 3D weather alert..."
They ALL use the same national system to determine the weather.
Stop the weather hysteria!