At the end of a long day, I am usually heading to bed right around 10pm. With a TV in the bedroom, this is when I catch up on the local news. Q13 Fox News to be exact. I have never really put thought into how TV news could improve because it has never occurred to me that improvements were needed. Watching the local news at 10pm has always been a "winding down" method to relax and fall asleep. It has never been a "I have to watch the entire hour before sleep" kind of scenario. Granted, if a story or clip has my attention, I continue to watch until the sandman arrives. Even then, sometimes he arrives whether I am interested or not. That is me though... I'm the type that will fall asleep during the most riveting flick if I am dead tired. There is no fighting sleep. My mind and body know when it is a priority and will shut off at any given moment.
However, if I am still wide awake and the news is not keeping me interested, I change the channel. Changing the channel because I lack interest in the broadcast is far different than falling asleep to the news. One is choice and the other is inevitable. So does that mean Q13 should make their broadcasts more attention grabbing? Not necessarily. What I find boring might be completely relevant to someone else. Therefore, TV news cannot gear all there clips to one individual.
Making stories more "enthralling" to keep my interest is not an improvement. One thing I would do though, is report more GOOD news. Every now and then we hear a heart warming story on the news, but they are far and few between. I like the analogy, "news is not about the chicken inside the coop, but rather about the chicken getting out of the coop." It pretty much sums up what we usually see on the news: negative stories, tragedies, criminals, bad news, bad news, bad news, etc. Again, I know once in a while there is a happy tale in the news somewhere, but I think the ratio between the negative and positive stories should be balanced a little better. It would be neat if Q13 offered a segment to local individuals with the happiest, funniest, or heart-felt stories. They could even hold a contest for locals to submit videos capturing these moments. Winners could then have their videos be a featured story. The contest could be on a weekly basis, or even a daily basis if it became popular enough. In fact, I think it would be popular right off the bat. People want to engage themselves and share their stories and thoughts. Q13 would probably have an endless stream of videos coming in if they opened up this type of segment. If there were more positive reports in the news, I would be inclined to watch more and not use the news as a "sleep aid."
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