To use a hyperlocal example, our local news outlets (I live in Dallas) cover the Dallas Cowboys 365 days a year. Every outlet, and every day.
I’m not really exaggerating. If it’s early May, which is the point on the calendar equidistant from the Super Bowl and the beginning of pre-season play, it’s almost a guarantee there will be SOME kind of news story in every outlet about the Cowboys as a team, or about some of the players, or about the ownership doing something.
I really don’t understand why this is SO popular/necessary. In May, June and July, they ought to be covering baseball and MLS soccer, not the Cowboys.
We joke at home that local news follows the same pattern almost every day.
Teaser.
Weather.
Traffic.
Fire.
Apple Ad (disguised as news).
Starbucks Ad (disguised as news).
Minorities in Peril.
Heartwarming dog story.
Cowboys. (football)
When my mother worked for Mobile Meals in the mid 1980s, they would often joke about how in 2050, everyone would be named Justin, Ryan, Tiffany, or Amanda.
Nowadays, it probably wouldn’t be that odd, at least around here, to say goodbye to Gus, Ethel, and Gertrude, and say hello to (you guessed it) Gus, Ethel, and Gertrude.
For as long as people have been doing this, I have wondered when/if a reporter will be killed live on the air. AFAIK, it hasn’t happened yet, but Anderson Cooper was almost bisected by a flying gas station roof during a CNN report. Now that they’re also reporting live from tornado warning zones, that will further increase the risk.
My old town, a largely middle-class rural city of 40,000, had a big shindig every year to raise money for the local arts council. They would devote an entire Sunday section to it - naming all the teens who vied for king and queen (this was determined by who sold the most tickets) as well as their parents, and lots of pictures of the town’s highest social echelon and their kids hobnobbing. It was sponsored by the newspaper, hence all the coverage, and really, it was the kind of thing where only the participants would have been interested. It was mainly an excuse for teenagers to dress up and presumably hook up one way or another, and their parents to see and be seen.
I will admit that it did raise more money for that council than presumably any other method would have, and it was an annual tradition that had gone on for many years.
Agreed. It was okay years and years ago, but now it seems everyone is trying to outdo each other.
But some of it is getting ridiculous. Not too long ago they did the segment and the father was coming home from 3 months at tech school in Texas. Big woop!
Anniversaries of major events. That’s not news, it’s olds. Even worse is anniversaries of minor events, like the recent story I saw about that time 20 years ago when the small-town Little League team beat the big-city Little League team.
you can tell 6:30 national newscasts are mostly viewed by older folks. They are full of drug ads. So the stories they do are going to be aimed at what older folks like.
ANYTIME any part of the news reports on reactions from Twitter especially if the reactions are the main part of the story, like how some celebrity was “attacked” on twitter but the “attacker” had 3 likes and only 10 followers.
sounds like you aren’t near a major city. Chicago news has the after effects of last weekends shootings, or the court dates from the ones a year ago. Replaces the fire section.
He’s from North Texas, which is generally in the Dallas/Fort Worth orbit.
For whatever reason, our area isn’t nearly as violent as Chicago, which is 10th in murder rate according to this list, while Dallas is 35th (assuming I can count).
So we get more news about fires- both in the metroplex and stuff like grass fires in the summer.