The News on Local TV

There was a time when we all sat in our living rooms to watch television, either for entertainment, to see our favorite sports team in action or to get the news. It was a time when the, then, new media was establishing itself and offering a real competition to the printed word in newspapers and magazines.

Years later, television has become such a hybrid that is nothing more than a dispenser of images and sound trying to impress the viewer, often without any meaning. Reality shows are king and provide cheap thrills to diners in prime time, afternoons are filled with fake judges dispensing justice in 30 minutes or less and tantalizing stories about scandals are on all the time.

The only programming that holds steady is sports. With millions of football, baseball and the newly discovered soccer, so-called experts analyze everything up to what kind of underwear player use.

The most damaged of all programs has been the news. We no longer have credible people at the helm, except perhaps some at the national level. The sprouting of so many local channels have created countless talking heads, most of them with nice smiles and good teeth, hitting the airwaves four or five times a day.

So, we have the morning news, at 6am and sometimes again at 7, news at noon, news at 4, 6, 10 and finally 11pm. An overabundance of the same thing repeated ad nauseaum with the ever present weather person remind us how a map looks like and gesturing as if he was delivering a song and dance routine.
Don’t forget the mediocre jokes these guys must exchange among themselves and the fake camaraderie while on the air. With Internet in full bloom, all this is part of a lame attempt to keep us informed. How many times you watch the news on TV just to see what your computer told you already- five hours ago?

I guess this is what has created a “new” kind of journalist - as they like to call themselves - with talking heads going out and doing other things to keep us entertained. Therefore we have the one who “cares” about our safety, another one is very much worried about our health, the pet guy (sometimes the same as the weather guy) reminding us to keep our dog inside because it’s too hot, the crime watcher, showing chummy images with the local police and giving us the insight on murders, rapes and burglaries, as if we live in another planet and those things don’t happen under our very noses.
Yet another tell us why we must change the oil in our cars as recommended, or perhaps keep our thermostats at 72 in the heat of summer to save energy, and also the constant reminder of recent accidents on the road “to avoid that intersection” (I don’t’ have a TV in my car!). Don’t’ forget the hidden commercials offered as news with some local business pitching their wares! In essence, novelty bits, mostly useless, have taken over the local TV newsrooms everywhere. No wonder why people turn to cable, CNN, MSNBC and others to get their news.

The sad part of this is to think that perhaps, and I’m saying perhaps, those talking heads really believe they are in the news business and that gives them the right to patronize all of us with their 60 seconds bits of wisdom and sales pitches. I don’t know about your town but in Las Vegas we get more air than substance.