Why are my local news sources so short sighted?

Their intent is to maximize viewers, so as to maximize advertising dollars. Evidently, they believe the majority of people care more about such trivialities.

News teams have cut back tremendously on their sources, they won’t pay for correspondents, even independent ones. And where I live, they’ve spent most of the last month covering weather.

@bob_ True, but I’m not sure why they would be of that opinion. Of course I don’t have access to their market research though.

@zenvelo That is a good point, thanks. During the wild weather we had recently over here, they had news running for 3–4 hours a night with correspondents in nearly every affected town. They interviewed everyone remotely connected to the floods/cyclone/fires. They also covered the Christchurch earthquake fairly extensively. However they failed to cover the similar flooding across the rest of the world, except for a short bulletin on Brazil. Maybe it just costs too much to get news from outside our little sphere.

Everyone is trying to find their niche. The cable news covers national and international news quite extensively. Local news covers local issues. You may be more concerned with the flooding in Brazil but some are more interested in the flooding in thier own town.

It’s not a matter of cost so much as a matter of time. There is so much going on that no single channel can cover it all. They focus on the audience they serve. International outlets focus on international and local outlets focus on local. There are millions of outlets out there and they each focus on thier niche audience.

Because corporations run the news and it’s all propaganda anymore. I have my satellite radio set to BBC.

Interesting. I’ve lived near Washington, DC all my life, and our local news definitely has a more international feel to it than broadcasts in say, Missouri (where I visit family on occasion). Maybe it’s a regional thing, and if you live in a city/area that’s widely affected by international affairs, then your local news covers it.

@FireMadeFlesh Democracy Now is a good source and covers the issues that you mentioned. See also, The Real News Network.

My local news always covers local events. This is it’s niche, because local news is the one area where there is no competition from national news. Local news sources can report about national news all they want, but national news sources vary rarily report about local events. The national/world news that I watch is much more international. It has done entire 30min broadcasts on the tsunami and quake in Japan.

I’ve pretty much given up on it. It seems they are more interested in distracting you from what’s really important and going on!

I watch read local sources for local news. National or international matters are too easily manipulated for local or even U.S. national news organizations. I usually look Reuters, Google, the BBC and Canadian news for U.S. stories.

CNN used to be pretty good but they are now competing with the Fox propaganda network. I notice most of our local news stations have been bought by Fox. Any station that has Glen Beck are automatically disregarded.

I’m 100% with @Judi on this one. The corporations that own our local news stations and papers just want one sided news. Thus, you get a bunch of filler with little substance.

I would answer this question, but Charlie Sheen is tweeting again.

@Jaxk Its not that I’m not interested in the local disasters, I am. I would like to hear about other countries as well though, especially when the later stories in the news are about a cat stuck in a storm water drain or something.

@augustlan That is certainly true. However in my country, regional areas broadcast their own news, followed by the bulletin from the nearest capital city. Sydney and Melbourne bulletins are nearly identical, apart from having different anchors and different priorities in sport. There is only one news-ish program that seriously looks at significant events.

@lloydbird Thanks, I’ll check them out.

I just checked the web page associated with my country’s biggest TV station, with the most popular news. There are five stories about murders, which I think are important, but it is silent on so many other things. There is no mention of the advancements of the rebels in Libya, but there is a story on Liz Hurley moving in with Shane Warne. I honestly think their priorities are screwed up.

@FireMadeFlesh Yeah, that’s terrible. In that case, I definitely recommend you check out news from the BBC or some other big outside source.

Although, BBC has had major budget cuts and is discontinuing service in lots of markets.

It’s not only your local news. My local news spends less then 30 seconds on Japan and Libya combined, but 10 minutes reporting about the college sports teams in the state, and how the governor sent BBQ to the other governor in Kentucky. I use the NYTimes, Reuters, and Pulse for news now.