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Oh, I'll add one more thing.  Weather forcasts are out of control.  They tease you about it for the whole first half of the show.  Then they spend ten god damned minutes talking about stuff that you really don't need to know, like barometric pressure, tempuratures 150 miles away, where the hottest and coldest spots in the country are, and on and on.  Just show the damn forecast, would ya?  The last 30 seconds of the weather segment are all any of us care about.  Show us that.  Dammit, show it to us several times over the course of the newscast, drop all the other weather fluff, and you'd still end up with enough time to add a little more actual news.

I gave up on television news years ago, but a friend of mine remained a news junkie. One time, about ten years ago, we're at his apartment and the local news comes on. )Keep in mind, this is in Toronto, which is a major metropolitan centre by North American standards, not some small-town backwater.)

So the local news comes on (station: CFTO), and the lead story was a big thunderstorm that had blown though earlier in the day, including footage of a chimney on a suburban house which had been struck by lightning - the lightning strike was really the focus of their report and they dwelled on it for a long time.

My friend still insisted there was valuable information to be gleaned from telelvision news.

Cynic wrote:

Oh, I'll add one more thing.  Weather forcasts are out of control.  They tease you about it for the whole first half of the show.  Then they spend ten god damned minutes talking about stuff that you really don't need to know, like barometric pressure, tempuratures 150 miles away, where the hottest and coldest spots in the country are, and on and on.

people travel.
People are more interested in the weather when they are about to travel.

Just show the damn forecast, would ya?  The last 30 seconds of the weather segment are all any of us care about.  Show us that.  Dammit, show it to us several times over the course of the newscast, drop all the other weather fluff, and you'd still end up with enough time to add a little more actual news.

They typically show it at the same time, look at your clock and tune it at that time.
Or do what I do - get it from the radio, where they are concise and quick - and do it during other prrogramming during a short news break that forces them to be concise and quick.

The absolute worst 'local' new story imo is when they tease you about some horrible personal tragedy, like a child that was left in a car that got stolen, etc, etc, and STAY TUNED, and we'll give you the shocking details...

Turns out the whole incident happened to people who live in a state thousands of miles away, and there is absolutely no local connection at all. That is pathetic. Not even local. It isn't how local the local news is, it is how sensational they make it.

The thing is is that newsworthy things happen all the time, but for reasons that vary from laziness to fear of offending someone somewhere, they make other people's news theirs, or they focus on the fallen chimney.

I love the weather report that says, "It's going to be partly cloudy tomorrow, with sun in the morning and a 40 % chance of showers." Or, "It's a mmixed bag, with some sun, clouds, and a chance of rain."

Yep. Got it covered.

mtpalms wrote:

The absolute worst 'local' new story imo is when they tease you about some horrible personal tragedy, like a child that was left in a car that got stolen, etc, etc, and STAY TUNED, and we'll give you the shocking details...

Even if such a report were local, it would be irrelevant and barely worth reporting. This would not affect you at all. It affects nobody but the people directly involved. Your life will not change if there is a fire in a warehouse across town. If there is a rash of auto thefts or child kidnappings indicating a bigger problem, or unsafe conditions which are causing excessive fire risk in warehouses throughout the city, then that is news that could affect you.

What has your city council been up to lately? How did that real estate developer get permits to build a strip mall in the historical area or town? How much travel are your state representatives doing on the taxpayer ticket, and why? What new, unusual bills are bein bounced around government, and what sort of pork-barrel clauses are included in them, and which representatives put them there, and why? This is news that affects your life, and you will not see it in a broadcast.

mtpalms wrote:

beaverfever wrote:

...what sort of pork-barrel clauses are included in them, and which representatives put them there, and why?

The only time you ever hear about that kind of stuff, in a backwards sort of way, is when a political opponent comes on and says, so and so didn't vote for our money for schools bill, so he/she is obviously anti-education. What the newsies ever interject is that the reason so and so voted against that bill is because the money would be funded by shutting down the local bus service, and stop providing low cost meals for seniors or something, and the newly freed funds would go to some huge contractor who has bid rigged a contract to build a 9000 sq ft fully equipped  weight room for the elementary school.

Yes, in the last federal election there were endless accusations of candidates voting against the war on terror, or against supporting troops, or against putting child molesters in jail, and things like that, but the truth is usually that these were minor clauses included in stupid bills for which the main subject of the bill had to be voted against.

As an aside, I would like to see an investigative report, with some seriously stealthy research put in, to determine how much effort is made by political strategists to include anti-terror, troop-supporting, anti-child-molester clauses in otherwise untenable bills so that one party or the other can use the resulting votes as weak, misleading political ammunition.

Is there any other country on the planet where clauses to fund completely unrelated programs are included in major federal bills? That has got to be the biggest piece of evidence that the US federal system of government is completely broken and needs to be replaced.

Ah, I just remembered the "Welcome to last week/month/year" news story. I'll read something on fark, or some online news outlet, and a week later (or even much later than that), this will be 'big news' on tv. Not limited to local news, I've seen the nets and cable news shows commit this. As a matter of fact, with the exception of the Jacko trial and other celebrity stories, all the news I see on tv has been culled from the internet.

I can't stand the "seasonal" news: Don't dress too warmly when you shovel snow; sun screen and heat stroke; Lyme disease and the need to wear long pants in the forest. Is there anybody who doesn't know this stuff?

My favorite are the BREAKING NEWS stories where the anchor lets everyone know about new studies and surveys that are completely obvious like "a new study shows that people who smoke are three times more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer" GO FIGURE!! or "CBS News reports that a recent study has shown that more cloudy days in Cincinnati means more chances for the suicide rate to increase" COME ON, DO WE NEED A STUDY TO FIGURE THIS OUT?

In the wintertime when there's a chance of snow, they do obligatory reports on people standing in line at the grocery store, then an interview with some state worker standing in front of a huge pile of salt (he always says "yes, we have plenty of salt!).

In my previous life I was a newspaper reporter, and often covered stories with the TV news people. They are every bit as dumb in person as they appear on the air.

TONIGHT AT 6:00 :

SHOCK & GORE
followed by
CELEBRITY GOSSIP
followed by
HEALTH FADS
followed by
POPULARITY POLLS ABOUT POLITICAL ISSUES WE NEVER ACCURATELY REPORTED
followed by
HEROIC KITTENS!!!!!! (you've got to stay tuned for this one! aaaaaawwwwwww....)
oh yeah, & weather & sports