Commentary
The Wrong Direction: Staying Stagnant Or Even Going Backwards With Local TV News Efforts
- by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, February 23, 2011
The future viability of TV stations hinges on their coverage of local news. That makes Fox Television Stations' alleged filing of fraudulent FCC documents for New York's WWOR-TV a head-scratcher.
One public interest group says viewers in New Jersey, where WWOR is based, are getting stiffed -- that the …
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Wayne Friedman is West Coast Editor of MediaPost. You can reach Wayne at wayne@mediapost.com.
This is hardly a head-scratcher. A left-wing group goes after a right-wing corporation. Nothing new. Right out of the 1960s playbook.
Our local news here in San Francisco has been neither "local" nor "news" for the past few years, unless a large explosion was involved.
Even the old saw "If it bleeds, it leads" is long-gone, since the skeleton crews that all local TV news programs now employ can't possibly cover every developing story.
What we get instead are reworked press releases, telling us all about the latest in hair restoration and weight loss breakthroughs. Just enough content to keep all the ads from running into each other.
For some odd reason Scoop Nisker's old sign-off line comes to mind; "If you don't like the news, go out and make some of your own."
...the only problem is, there's no one left to report it, ... unless you Tweet it yourself.
Looking at KRON's website, I see plenty of local news stories....