OK, so there’s this shooting ramapage in Brookfield. It’s a horrible thing, and I wish it hadn’t happened. Condolences to the friends and families. I completely understand the local TV stations interrupting regularly scheduled programming that afternoon to bring us “Breaking News”. That’s what they’re supposed to do.
However, and this is primarily targeted at Channel 4 in Milwaukee (WTMJ), what was the reasoning behind expanding the Saturday night 10:00 news from 30 minutes to 60 minutes? After repeating the only known facts about the event, and a few on-location reports - what else was there to say? There were no additional facts to be reported. There were other things that happened in the world that day.
Side note about the “on-location” reporting: If the actual news happened 9 hours prior to your broadcast, what purpose does it serve to stand outside the building, point to it, and say “Behind me, 9 hours ago…” Put a file photo on screen and do a voice over from the studio!
Here’s another thing (again, WTMJ) — “Bloodbath In Brookfield”? What the hell is that? It’s not sensational news enough that something like this happened, you need to “sex it up” with a tagline?
The local news coverage of any major story — or the weather (”My god, it’s snowing! A lot!!!”) — is sensationalistic and exploitive. Each network is trying to out-do the other, looking to pick up a Local Emmy or something. They’re supposed to be a news outlet, not entertainment.
I’ll stick to the paper and the internet from now on, thank you.
Comments
4 Comments
the media is a lie. burn your tv–after “march madness” is over.
Posted March 14, 2005 at 9:41 am by shux .
I am down on the television media after the last three days, but I’m not quite at Rajan-Level just yet. After all, it takes a remarkable capacity for self-loathing to mercilessly deride the industry which feeds and clothes you.
Nonetheless, “Bloodbath in Brookfield” angered me like few other things since I started in this profession. At 5:10 p.m. Saturday I found myself having to work not to cry when they read off the list of victims, which included a 10-year-old girl. The little girl is what set me off.
During the last 48 hours I’ve said, heard, written and read the name Terry Ratzmann dozens upon dozens of times. There’s a sense of fatigue here with this. We’d all like to go away, immediately. There’s no pleasure in this for us other than satisfaction in doing our jobs as well as we possibly can. We’ve had meetings about toning down the sensationalism. We’re trying to curb it, but, I fear, speculation and such took over some of the things we did. It’s difficult trying to keep up with the “Bloodbath in Brookfield” types, when they can have the same information you just learned on TV in a matter of minutes.
While Channel 4 has chosen to hype this story with something from a Friday the 13th, Part VIII tagline, there’s some interesting work going on with the newspapers. The problem is, people don’t read them anymore, and, I hate to say it, I’m not sure we’ve made a good enough argument lately to change their minds.
Posted March 14, 2005 at 1:03 pm by Jim .
Jim, thank you for your very thoughtful, well-stated, and non-basketball related comment
Posted March 14, 2005 at 1:08 pm by Bryan Buchs .
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Posted March 15, 2005 at 11:43 pm by Chet .