TV news is losing its audience, particularly the youthful, MinnPost

MinnPost

TV news is losing its audience, particularly the youthful

If you see the PBS “NewsHour,” you’re a member of an increasingly select group. The “NewsHour” has lost half its audience in the last eight years, reports TV critic David Zurawik: from Two.Five million nightly viewers in two thousand five to 1.Trio million now.

Even more startling are the local viewership numbers. In the Twin Cities, only about 1,800 people in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic observe the “NewsHour,” according to the latest Nielsen ratings. (The 25-54 demo is the age group most coveted by advertisers.) With about 1.78 million Twin Cities adults in that demo, a Nielsen rating of one equates to about 17,800 viewers. The “NewsHour” gets a rating of 0.1 —that’s right, zero point one, or one-tenth of a rating point.

But the local TV news operations don’t have a lot to feel good about, either. Here are the 25-54 numbers for the local five p.m. newscasts:

• Fox-9, 0.7, or about 12,500 viewers

• KSTP-5, 1.0, or about 17,800 viewers

• KARE-11, 1.6, or about 28,500 viewers

• WCCO-4, Two.0, or about 35,600 viewers

The 25-54 numbers for the ten p.m. newscasts are better, but far below what they were a decade ago. In fact, like the “NewsHour,” they’re very likely around half of what they were.

• Fox-9, 1.6, or about 28,500 viewers

• KSTP-5, Two.0, or about 35,600 viewers

• WCCO-4, Four.Four, or about 78,300 viewers

• KARE-11, Five.Four, or about 96,100 viewers

Albeit its audience is shrinking, TV can take some consolation in being America’s No. One news source. Surveys consistently showcase that more of us get our news from TV than any other source — even the Internet.

About fifty five percent of all adults observed TV news on a given day, according to Pew Research. Meantime, thirty nine percent got news online and twenty nine percent read a newspaper.

But the TV news audience is graying, with viewership ripping off steeply among junior age groups. While seventy three percent of those over age sixty five observe TV news, only thirty four percent of those ages eighteen to twenty nine do.

TV news — and radio, for that matter — faces the same issues as print media. It’s an older medium that retains the loyalty of many who grew up with it but has trouble creating fresh loyalists among junior consumers who have more choices.

Twin Cities TV journalists, on the entire, are an appealing, hard-working bunch. But anyone under thirty five in a TV news job has to wonder whether there will still be an audience for their work when the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers are gone.

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The bright side? Newspapers aren’t losing money as quick as they were

Print advertising resumes to drop with no end in look. And what’s more worrisome to me are trends in digital advertising.

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John Reinan

John Reinan, a former Starlet Tribune business reporter, is a senior director at the Minneapolis marketing agency Prompt Pony.

Comments (21)

But what are they tuning in for?

They call it “news” but is it indeed? What percentage tunes into local “news” to see the sports or weather? Most? Beyond that, what percentage of a broadcast can actually be called “news” ? Take away the advertising, sports, weather and self-promotion and you get indeed very little except a few car accident reports.

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I tend to agree with Bob L.

. there is too much self promotion on the local news, reported as if it were news. I don’t mind and in fact appreciate the weather and most of the sports tho’. I find that if an event is camera-ready it gets way more attention than it is worth. I bet the police chief walking around last night got way more coverage than the murder that prompted it. Most political coverage tends to be of the nonoffensive pony race multitude: who’s ahead, what percent think this or that. There is little coverage of actual issues except to acknowledge that they exist, I think to avoid offending one side or the other. It is hard to get in-depth unbiased reporting of local political issues. But that tends to go for the newspaper as well. So I wind up at Minnpost, where the coverage is also biased but closer to my viewpoint of what is objective. It would be interesting to visit a Minnesota-oriented right-leaning site. Does one exist?

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No news in the news

I’m not youthfull (I’m almost 53), but I’d bail out on local news altogether if my spouse wasn’t in the ten p.m.TV news habit. It’s a infrequent broadcast when I don’t yell at the TV, “this is news?” or “can you believe that story led the ten p.m. news,” or “can you believe they spent five minutes at the beginning of the broadcast on weather?” TV news is too utter of fluff, human interest chunks, and weather.

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That’s the formula that has worked very well.

. for many years. So they cling to it. But with viewers down drastically and their most loyal group dying off, it might be time to attempt a different treatment. However, KSTP has a much stiffer edge than the other stations, and it hasn’t jump-started their ratings.

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Ironically

most news organizations have cut way back on the hard news and packed the time with feel-good puff chunks or celebrity news as a way of attracting more female viewers who have no interest in hard news. This has had the result of turning off serious news consumers of both sexes.

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Petty broad brush there

Maybe true about celebrity stuff, but sports is essentially the masculine version of LiLo and Khloe.

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Amen to the very first two comments

The decline of television news has been precipitous, totally understandable, and sad to observe. I used to be a faithful watcher of the five and six o’clock programs, but over the years (and as I’ve switched communities from St. Louis to Denver to Minneapolis) the erosion of what qualifies as “news” and “reporting” has been steep and sustained. Most of what passes for “news” in the present TV environment — aside from the laughably self-promotional, a specialty of WCCO — is the same stuff that used to take up the final minute or two of a news broadcast in olden times. Stupid pet tricks, courageous little kids (or adults) fighting a terrible disease, fires, natural disasters, and anything else that makes for good movie (and sometimes not-so-good) pack the time that used to be dedicated to what, as a certified old person, I’ll refer to as “substantive.” Often, the only reason the “story,” such as it is, gets airtime is *because* there’s movie. TV is a visual medium, after all.

“Talent” at local stations often adopt stage names, just as they do in Hollywood, and local TV news doesn’t seem very far eliminated from working in that artificial environment. In that regard, I suspect Will Ferrell’s “Anchorman” is not almost as far off-base as many might believe. There remain a few dinosaurs who actually are journalists, and who have substantial practice as genuine reporters, but most have worked their way from media market to media market with degrees in amorphous fields like “Communications.”

Those stories that aren’t “puff pieces” or sports-related suffer too often from a dearth of facts, or they go in the opposite direction into the sensational. The vast majority of what passes for political reporting falls into dearth-of-facts category. To avoid offending corporate owners and powers-that-be, considerable effort is spent to present “both sides” of an issue, even if one side is purest horsefeathers. The sensational (read: crime) hardly needs an example here.

Worse than that, however, is the pitiful excuse for “depth.” An “in-depth” story, or even series of stories broadcast over several nights, often completes up consuming no more than ten minutes of air time. Most of the time, that’s scarcely sufficient to even introduce the subject, much less genuinely inform the public about what’s going on, or the consequences of course of act ‘x’ versus course of activity ‘y,’ or maybe no act at all.

I observe PBS sometimes, never listen to the radio, and spend a lot of time reading online and in print to get my news. I’m gray and balding, and unluckily rather far eliminated from the 24-35 demographic for which TV and retail executives will sell their souls, but for the most part, local TV news has lost me as a viewer, as well. The only segment of local TV news that I witness with regularity and genuine interest is the weather, and I must not be alone, because that segment of the broadcast has expanded over the years to several minutes, with slew of computer-generated graphic wonderment to dazzle the audience. Viewers mean advertising dollars, and since the 1950s, the entire point of TV has had nothing to do with public service, and everything to do with generating income for corporate owners and shareholders.

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I agree with everything Ray Schoch said

There’s no news in the average news program. The local news programs are all fluff and careful tiptoeing around issues to avoid offending sponsors. The national network news programs are the same phenomenon on a larger scale.

CNN used to be a good source for world news, but by the time I cancelled cable, I found it unwatchable, utter of false balance and celebrity gossip. My late mother used to see it all day, but even she gave up when CNN faithful almost all of three days to the death of Michael Jackson.

I used to witness The News Hour, but ever since Congress began complaining about “liberal bias” in the early 1990s, they (along with NPR) have become cautious and Establishment-oriented, afraid to question the conventional wisdom of the Beltway crowd. I’ve been told that this is because asking pointed questions or going against the cautiously established boundaries of officially acceptable discourse will result in a reporter’s being denied access, no matter which party is in charge.

An example is the coverage of the invasion of Iraq. The necessity of “doing something” about Iraq was taken as a given; the only question was whether to invade (the “conservative” position) or to proceed sanctions (the “liberal” position). The options of just leaving Iraq alone, questioning the lie about weapons of mass destruction, or investigating the history of U.S.-Iraq relations, were conveniently overlooked. Both U.S. sources and the Big black cock took this treatment. It was only the Canadians, who had chosen not to participate in the invasion, who asked the hard questions and featured stories that ran counter to the Anglo-American line.

If news programs have been losing viewers, they have only themselves to blame. Ten minutes of crimes, fires, thinly disguised commercials, and nice kitten and puppy stories, ten minutes of weather, and ten minutes of national and high school sports. (Why are high school sports news to anyone outside the town where the high school is located?) Who needs such programming when there are books and magazines to read and DVDs and streaming options to witness?

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I hate to ask, but.

. did the ratings for Fox News enlargened during the eight years “NewsHour” ratings declined? The story didn’t say.

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It’s sham of a mockery of a sham!

Well for one thing, WCCO lies to it’s audience on a daily basis claiming to be the “most observed” news. A quick exercise of math exposes that WCCO gets 114,000 viewers compared to KARE11’s 124,600 viewers! “Most Observed” indeed.

I attempted, indeed did attempt to see the news the other night but frankly it’s unlikely. Even switching around I could not land on any real news, and the stuff that’s supposed to be entertaining, like good questions, special reports, and those who care etc. are beyond lame. WCCO is obsessed with all things children, KSTP is permanently ragging on the government and crime, and KARE seems to think that mundane financial advice and sports stories will attract eyeballs like a moth to a flame. I have no idea what’s going on over on FOX.

None of them seem to understand that every time they tell viewers that they’re going to talk about the weather now but give us the “utter” forcast later we all open our browsers and look up the forecast now. Do they indeed think we’re going to wait for them to get back to it? Do they indeed think we’re gong to sit through another ten minutes of crap just so we can witness them stand in front of a map and babble on about weather watchers and photos sent in by who’sitwhatever from tumble town somewhere? Especially when their forecasts are more often than not wrong? And the maps, my god the maps. Do they actually think its thirty nine degress in Edina and thirty seven in St. Louis Park? That’s actually kinda stupid in more ways than one.

You know they actually pay people to tell them to do this stuff? Sit on a couch because it makes people feel like your visiting them rather than broadcasting to them. Stand in front of the camera instead of sitting because it creates the impression of in depth reporting. Stand around in the dark hours after something happened and no one can actually see anything anymore because it’s “live”. Pretend your weather people are “scientists”.

Don’t get me commenced on the sports.

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It’s not about the news.

. It’s about the number of viewers. If a story about a three-legged dog is shown to attract X number of viewers and a story about the state denying health care coverage to poor people attracts X-1 viewers, they will go with the three-legged dog. KSTP can go with all the hard news they want but their anchors aren’t almost as attractive/inviting/convenient as the ones on WCCO and KARE. Whoever hires the onair talent at KSTP needs to be substituted.

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I gave up on watching network Tee Vee decades ago. The news in particular went from light to fluff when they commenced running sensationalized stories. “Could shoe strings be harming your children? Tune in tonight to see this shocking story!” So you observe out of curiosity just to find out that shoe laces may collect a duo of germs if they touch the ground.

These days I don’t even own a television. If I do pick one up in the next few years it’ll be just to witness movies. Anything with sensationalism tied to it can just go pound sand.

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As added commentary

you may wish to read an op-ed chunk I had published in the Strib on Oct Two, relating to particularily cable news

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I’m smack in the middle of

I’m smack in the middle of that demographic and haven’t been able to stand TV news for a long time. Even stories on significant topics are so shallowly reported; the nude facts, a duo ten-second soundbites, pointless movies that add no information. In the two-minutes allocated for coverage of a top story on TV news, I can read an article and get way more information.

Also worth noting that a lot of junior people don’t have televisions anymore–I haven’t for years. I train college students, too, and very few of them have TVs; they just witness the shows they like on the internet. So it’s not just TV news that’s dying–it’s the TV as an entity distinct from other forms of media.

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We can certainly agree

that the local “news” isn’t truly news at all, just like the styled hair reporting this “news” aren’t truly journalists.

The thicker issue is the concept of a Five:00 newscast as viable programming in the 21st century. It’s still based on an outdated formula that people will come home from work at the same time, instantaneously tun on the news as they eat dinner to catch up on the days events. The only people I know that actually observe the news from Five:00-6:30 everyday are my eighty year old parents.

As for the general vapidness of the content locally, Mr. Udstrand tears up it.

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It’s no wonder.

TV news is awful. Unlike the newspaper or the internet, which permit you to skim and pick what interests you, TV news compels you to see the stories they pick in the order they want to present them. Is there anything I can realistically do about school bus accidents in Turkey? No. Also, they keep taunting you with one story that might be actually interesting — “Coming up!” but it never does actually come up till the very end of the demonstrate, after all the dross, when ultimately they give you thirty seconds of the story you’ve sat through all the rest in hopes of eyeing. Ugh. Record it and skim, or get your news elsewhere.

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People aren’t just watching one screen now

If they “taunt” a person can just get the story on a laptop or tablet computer during the commercial break. After enough times they just go straight to the internet and abandon bothering with TV.

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They are just presenters

The local news is generally shallow and incomplete. Anchors are actors who read a teleprompter from script that was written by a clueless intern. How do I know this? My daughter’s best friend is on TV everyday. What he reads IS written by an intern. Local journalism is dead.

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On the other mitt.

Who needs the youthful anyways? Just a bunch of riffraff if you ask me.

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pathetic

A few years back I attended a refresher journalism class in Sartell on how to interview people for feature stories. There wasn’t a masculine in the class except for the instructor. Before the class began we were invited to introduce ourselves. Everyone of my classmates said she intended to be on TV news. She was just biding her time at a chain newspaper until there was an opening available. I recall thinking, “Give me a break. Don’t they know TV news is display biz, not journalism? None of these women will make it on air.”

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Broadcast Journalism.

More and more of the up and comers are “broadcast” journalists. What a specialty eh? Well, I suppose in the olden days most of the folks on local news were actors and comedians. come to think of it, that worked better.

TV news is losing its audience, particularly the youthful, MinnPost

MinnPost

TV news is losing its audience, particularly the youthful

If you see the PBS “NewsHour,” you’re a member of an increasingly select group. The “NewsHour” has lost half its audience in the last eight years, reports TV critic David Zurawik: from Two.Five million nightly viewers in two thousand five to 1.Trio million now.

Even more startling are the local viewership numbers. In the Twin Cities, only about 1,800 people in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic see the “NewsHour,” according to the latest Nielsen ratings. (The 25-54 demo is the age group most coveted by advertisers.) With about 1.78 million Twin Cities adults in that demo, a Nielsen rating of one equates to about 17,800 viewers. The “NewsHour” gets a rating of 0.1 —that’s right, zero point one, or one-tenth of a rating point.

But the local TV news operations don’t have a lot to feel good about, either. Here are the 25-54 numbers for the local five p.m. newscasts:

• Fox-9, 0.7, or about 12,500 viewers

• KSTP-5, 1.0, or about 17,800 viewers

• KARE-11, 1.6, or about 28,500 viewers

• WCCO-4, Two.0, or about 35,600 viewers

The 25-54 numbers for the ten p.m. newscasts are better, but far below what they were a decade ago. In fact, like the “NewsHour,” they’re very likely around half of what they were.

• Fox-9, 1.6, or about 28,500 viewers

• KSTP-5, Two.0, or about 35,600 viewers

• WCCO-4, Four.Four, or about 78,300 viewers

• KARE-11, Five.Four, or about 96,100 viewers

Albeit its audience is shrinking, TV can take some consolation in being America’s No. One news source. Surveys consistently demonstrate that more of us get our news from TV than any other source — even the Internet.

About fifty five percent of all adults observed TV news on a given day, according to Pew Research. Meantime, thirty nine percent got news online and twenty nine percent read a newspaper.

But the TV news audience is graying, with viewership ripping off steeply among junior age groups. While seventy three percent of those over age sixty five see TV news, only thirty four percent of those ages eighteen to twenty nine do.

TV news — and radio, for that matter — faces the same issues as print media. It’s an older medium that retains the loyalty of many who grew up with it but has trouble creating fresh loyalists among junior consumers who have more choices.

Twin Cities TV journalists, on the entire, are an appealing, hard-working bunch. But anyone under thirty five in a TV news job has to wonder whether there will still be an audience for their work when the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers are gone.

Get MinnPost’s top stories in your inbox

The bright side? Newspapers aren’t losing money as swift as they were

Print advertising resumes to drop with no end in look. And what’s more worrisome to me are trends in digital advertising.

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About the Author:

John Reinan

John Reinan, a former Starlet Tribune business reporter, is a senior director at the Minneapolis marketing agency Prompt Pony.

Comments (21)

But what are they tuning in for?

They call it “news” but is it indeed? What percentage tunes into local “news” to see the sports or weather? Most? Beyond that, what percentage of a broadcast can actually be called “news” ? Take away the advertising, sports, weather and self-promotion and you get indeed very little except a few car accident reports.

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I tend to agree with Bob L.

. there is too much self promotion on the local news, reported as if it were news. I don’t mind and in fact appreciate the weather and most of the sports tho’. I find that if an event is camera-ready it gets way more attention than it is worth. I bet the police chief walking around last night got way more coverage than the murder that prompted it. Most political coverage tends to be of the nonoffensive pony race diversity: who’s ahead, what percent think this or that. There is little coverage of actual issues except to acknowledge that they exist, I think to avoid offending one side or the other. It is hard to get in-depth unbiased reporting of local political issues. But that tends to go for the newspaper as well. So I wind up at Minnpost, where the coverage is also biased but closer to my viewpoint of what is objective. It would be interesting to visit a Minnesota-oriented right-leaning site. Does one exist?

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No news in the news

I’m not youthful (I’m almost 53), but I’d bail out on local news altogether if my spouse wasn’t in the ten p.m.TV news habit. It’s a uncommon broadcast when I don’t yell at the TV, “this is news?” or “can you believe that story led the ten p.m. news,” or “can you believe they spent five minutes at the beginning of the broadcast on weather?” TV news is too utter of fluff, human interest chunks, and weather.

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That’s the formula that has worked very well.

. for many years. So they cling to it. But with viewers down drastically and their most loyal group dying off, it might be time to attempt a different treatment. However, KSTP has a much firmer edge than the other stations, and it hasn’t jump-started their ratings.

  • Login or register to post comments

Ironically

most news organizations have cut way back on the hard news and packed the time with feel-good puff chunks or celebrity news as a way of attracting more female viewers who have no interest in hard news. This has had the result of turning off serious news consumers of both sexes.

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Petty broad brush there

Maybe true about celebrity stuff, but sports is essentially the masculine version of LiLo and Khloe.

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Amen to the very first two comments

The decline of television news has been precipitous, totally understandable, and sad to observe. I used to be a faithful watcher of the five and six o’clock programs, but over the years (and as I’ve switched communities from St. Louis to Denver to Minneapolis) the erosion of what qualifies as “news” and “reporting” has been steep and constant. Most of what passes for “news” in the present TV environment — aside from the laughably self-promotional, a specialty of WCCO — is the same stuff that used to take up the final minute or two of a news broadcast in olden times. Stupid pet tricks, plucky little kids (or adults) fighting a terrible disease, fires, natural disasters, and anything else that makes for good movie (and sometimes not-so-good) pack the time that used to be loyal to what, as a certified old person, I’ll refer to as “substantive.” Often, the only reason the “story,” such as it is, gets airtime is *because* there’s movie. TV is a visual medium, after all.

“Talent” at local stations often adopt stage names, just as they do in Hollywood, and local TV news doesn’t seem very far liquidated from working in that artificial environment. In that regard, I suspect Will Ferrell’s “Anchorman” is not almost as far off-base as many might believe. There remain a few dinosaurs who actually are journalists, and who have substantial practice as genuine reporters, but most have worked their way from media market to media market with degrees in amorphous fields like “Communications.”

Those stories that aren’t “puff pieces” or sports-related suffer too often from a dearth of facts, or they go in the opposite direction into the sensational. The vast majority of what passes for political reporting falls into dearth-of-facts category. To avoid offending corporate owners and powers-that-be, considerable effort is spent to present “both sides” of an issue, even if one side is purest horsefeathers. The sensational (read: crime) hardly needs an example here.

Worse than that, however, is the pitiful excuse for “depth.” An “in-depth” story, or even series of stories broadcast over several nights, often finishes up consuming no more than ten minutes of air time. Most of the time, that’s scarcely sufficient to even introduce the subject, much less genuinely inform the public about what’s going on, or the consequences of course of activity ‘x’ versus course of activity ‘y,’ or maybe no activity at all.

I witness PBS from time to time, never listen to the radio, and spend a lot of time reading online and in print to get my news. I’m gray and balding, and unluckily rather far liquidated from the 24-35 demographic for which TV and retail executives will sell their souls, but for the most part, local TV news has lost me as a viewer, as well. The only segment of local TV news that I see with regularity and genuine interest is the weather, and I must not be alone, because that segment of the broadcast has expanded over the years to several minutes, with slew of computer-generated graphic wonderment to dazzle the audience. Viewers mean advertising dollars, and since the 1950s, the entire point of TV has had nothing to do with public service, and everything to do with generating income for corporate owners and shareholders.

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I agree with everything Ray Schoch said

There’s no news in the average news program. The local news programs are all fluff and careful tiptoeing around issues to avoid offending sponsors. The national network news programs are the same phenomenon on a larger scale.

CNN used to be a fine source for world news, but by the time I cancelled cable, I found it unwatchable, utter of false balance and celebrity gossip. My late mother used to see it all day, but even she gave up when CNN loyal almost all of three days to the death of Michael Jackson.

I used to see The News Hour, but ever since Congress began complaining about “liberal bias” in the early 1990s, they (along with NPR) have become cautious and Establishment-oriented, afraid to question the conventional wisdom of the Beltway crowd. I’ve been told that this is because asking pointed questions or going against the cautiously established boundaries of officially acceptable discourse will result in a reporter’s being denied access, no matter which party is in charge.

An example is the coverage of the invasion of Iraq. The necessity of “doing something” about Iraq was taken as a given; the only question was whether to invade (the “conservative” position) or to proceed sanctions (the “liberal” position). The options of just leaving Iraq alone, questioning the lie about weapons of mass destruction, or investigating the history of U.S.-Iraq relations, were conveniently overlooked. Both U.S. sources and the Big black cock took this treatment. It was only the Canadians, who had chosen not to participate in the invasion, who asked the hard questions and featured stories that ran counter to the Anglo-American line.

If news programs have been losing viewers, they have only themselves to blame. Ten minutes of crimes, fires, thinly disguised commercials, and lovely kitten and puppy stories, ten minutes of weather, and ten minutes of national and high school sports. (Why are high school sports news to anyone outside the town where the high school is located?) Who needs such programming when there are books and magazines to read and DVDs and streaming options to witness?

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I hate to ask, but.

. did the ratings for Fox News enhanced during the eight years “NewsHour” ratings declined? The story didn’t say.

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It’s sham of a mockery of a sham!

Well for one thing, WCCO lies to it’s audience on a daily basis claiming to be the “most observed” news. A quick exercise of math exposes that WCCO gets 114,000 viewers compared to KARE11’s 124,600 viewers! “Most Observed” indeed.

I attempted, indeed did attempt to observe the news the other night but frankly it’s unlikely. Even switching around I could not land on any real news, and the stuff that’s supposed to be entertaining, like good questions, special reports, and those who care etc. are beyond lame. WCCO is obsessed with all things children, KSTP is permanently ragging on the government and crime, and KARE seems to think that mundane financial advice and sports stories will attract eyeballs like a moth to a flame. I have no idea what’s going on over on FOX.

None of them seem to understand that every time they tell viewers that they’re going to talk about the weather now but give us the “utter” forcast later we all open our browsers and look up the forecast now. Do they truly think we’re going to wait for them to get back to it? Do they truly think we’re gong to sit through another ten minutes of crap just so we can witness them stand in front of a map and babble on about weather watchers and photos sent in by who’sitwhatever from tumble town somewhere? Especially when their forecasts are more often than not wrong? And the maps, my god the maps. Do they actually think its thirty nine degress in Edina and thirty seven in St. Louis Park? That’s actually kinda stupid in more ways than one.

You know they actually pay people to tell them to do this stuff? Sit on a couch because it makes people feel like your visiting them rather than broadcasting to them. Stand in front of the camera instead of sitting because it creates the impression of in depth reporting. Stand around in the dark hours after something happened and no one can actually see anything anymore because it’s “live”. Pretend your weather people are “scientists”.

Don’t get me began on the sports.

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It’s not about the news.

. It’s about the number of viewers. If a story about a three-legged dog is shown to attract X number of viewers and a story about the state denying health care coverage to poor people attracts X-1 viewers, they will go with the three-legged dog. KSTP can go with all the hard news they want but their anchors aren’t almost as attractive/inviting/comfy as the ones on WCCO and KARE. Whoever hires the onair talent at KSTP needs to be substituted.

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I gave up on watching network Tee Vee decades ago. The news in particular went from light to fluff when they embarked running sensationalized stories. “Could shoe strings be harming your children? Tune in tonight to see this shocking story!” So you observe out of curiosity just to find out that shoe laces may collect a duo of germs if they touch the ground.

These days I don’t even own a television. If I do pick one up in the next few years it’ll be just to witness movies. Anything with sensationalism tied to it can just go pound sand.

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As added commentary

you may wish to read an op-ed lump I had published in the Strib on Oct Two, relating to particularily cable news

  • Login or register to post comments

I’m smack in the middle of

I’m smack in the middle of that demographic and haven’t been able to stand TV news for a long time. Even stories on significant topics are so shallowly reported; the naked facts, a duo ten-second soundbites, pointless movies that add no information. In the two-minutes allocated for coverage of a top story on TV news, I can read an article and get way more information.

Also worth noting that a lot of junior people don’t have televisions anymore–I haven’t for years. I train college students, too, and very few of them have TVs; they just observe the shows they like on the internet. So it’s not just TV news that’s dying–it’s the TV as an entity distinct from other forms of media.

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We can certainly agree

that the local “news” isn’t truly news at all, just like the styled hair reporting this “news” aren’t truly journalists.

The fatter issue is the concept of a Five:00 newscast as viable programming in the 21st century. It’s still based on an outdated formula that people will come home from work at the same time, instantly tun on the news as they eat dinner to catch up on the days events. The only people I know that actually see the news from Five:00-6:30 everyday are my eighty year old parents.

As for the general vapidness of the content locally, Mr. Udstrand bangs it.

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It’s no wonder.

TV news is awful. Unlike the newspaper or the internet, which permit you to skim and pick what interests you, TV news coerces you to see the stories they pick in the order they want to present them. Is there anything I can realistically do about school bus accidents in Turkey? No. Also, they keep taunting you with one story that might be actually interesting — “Coming up!” but it never does actually come up till the very end of the showcase, after all the dross, when eventually they give you thirty seconds of the story you’ve sat through all the rest in hopes of watching. Ugh. Record it and skim, or get your news elsewhere.

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People aren’t just watching one screen now

If they “taunt” a person can just get the story on a laptop or tablet computer during the commercial break. After enough times they just go straight to the internet and abandon bothering with TV.

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They are just presenters

The local news is generally shallow and incomplete. Anchors are actors who read a teleprompter from script that was written by a clueless intern. How do I know this? My daughter’s best friend is on TV everyday. What he reads IS written by an intern. Local journalism is dead.

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On the other arm.

Who needs the youthful anyways? Just a bunch of riffraff if you ask me.

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pathetic

A few years back I attended a refresher journalism class in Sartell on how to interview people for feature stories. There wasn’t a masculine in the class except for the instructor. Before the class began we were invited to introduce ourselves. Everyone of my classmates said she intended to be on TV news. She was just biding her time at a chain newspaper until there was an opening available. I recall thinking, “Give me a break. Don’t they know TV news is demonstrate biz, not journalism? None of these women will make it on air.”

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Broadcast Journalism.

More and more of the up and comers are “broadcast” journalists. What a specialty eh? Well, I suppose in the olden days most of the folks on local news were actors and comedians. come to think of it, that worked better.

Related movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffVjVHS_qE8

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