Fluff: WCCO

WCCO ended their evening broadcast tonight with a hard-hitting news-piece on the arrival of baby sea otters at the Minnesota Zoo.

Comfy news stories are used to finish broadcasts because ending on a lighter note helps maintain an audience. This is one of many signs that broadcasters, in a constant battle for ratings and advertising revenue, have lost track of their grand responsibility: the quality of the public sphere.

The RTNDA code of ethics says that "journalists should [. . .] guard against extended coverage of events or individuals that fails to significantly advance a story, place the event in context, or add to the public knowledge."

Post Uno

The title of the blog gives a good idea of how I will use this blog. The only thing that I need to clarify is this: by "local" TV news, I'm referring to local news in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. If you live somewhere else, then I encourage you to turn a firm eye on your own local news broadcasts, but I can't provide criticism of any broadcasts that happen outside the Twin Cities (except, maybe, as a comparison to our own).

The stations I watch will all be local network affiliates. I don't have cable and can't watch anything broadcast on the local public access stations. The local news programs I will monitor and write about in this blog include those broadcast on:

WCCO/Channel 4: CBS
KSTP/ Channel 5: ABC
KMSP/Channel 9: FOX
KARE/Channel 11: NBC

Thank you for reading.