Local News: Too Sad and Too Slow

Confession time. I honestly will only watch local television news coverage if I am either too tired or too lazy to move to the location of my remote and change the channel to something I am more interested in. It is too often that the majority of the news presented on local television channels is the same old negative content that we have come to expect. Crime, weather disasters, corrupt businesses, and angry townspeople have become the norm when it comes to what is newsworthy to report on. Along with lack of interesting, positive content, it is the lack of real time reporting and news that contributes to my personal distaste for the current format of local news television. These are factors that need to be seriously looked at if local news wants to stay relevant in our fast paced world. It is no secret that sad, tragic, dangerous, and negative news sells. This is why if you were to turn on your television to watch your local news program, odds are that approximately 80% of the presented content would contain a message of "negative news," with the rest maybe containing a positive story on a local individual or group. It is this lack in diversity of content that I know personally keeps me away from watching the local news. It is understandable to present what sells the most, but it would seem the effect that this has on the overall mood of our society is completely overlooked. I would suggest that local news must find a way to present more content and let the viewers decide on what they would like to watch. In this way, consumers may be much more inclined to stay glued to the station and switch back and forth between the news content that they feel is most relevant to them at the time either based on interest or mood. Finally, it is the internet and social media that the local news must compete with. Many of us are able to find out about virtually any news story over the course of the day on sites like Google News or social networks such as Twitter as soon as the stories are developing. Most local news televisions have grasped this new concept and run either blogs or Twitter profiles to present news to followers in real time. With this kind of to up to date reporting, there may be no need at all for morning, afternoon, and evening local news programs. Local news channels could put all of their effort into providing digital media (videos, pictures, blogs, etc.) on the internet to their viewers in real time. This would allow them to not only provide relevant news as it happens, but also provide varied content to viewers who can then choose what to follow, solving both problems outlined here. The way news travels is rapidly changing and the faster local news television realizes this, the happier both they and the viewers will be.