Dave Foulk Internet Flyer

One of the things that ruined television news a long time ago was the dunderheaded idea that if a newscast has successful ratings in Durham, what they do will work in Duluth.   Radio news would be the same if there were enough radio news departments to consult.  Most large cities have real news departments, most medium to small markets usually have very small news departments, if at all.  Radio music, identities such as “imaging” - those sounds with the big announcer telling you what station you’re hearing, talk programs- everything else is to some scale or another a case of monkey see-monkey do from one market to the next.

Try this the next time you’re on a trip (as in travel to another city).  Television newscasts will look nearly the same, the anchors will look like the ones in another town, and the way the news is presented will likely be the same.  Listen to the FM dial, and unless you hear a station identification with a city mentioned, you probably won’t know what city you’re listening to.

Broadcasters did this to themselves by giving in to the side of the brain that screams profit, and ignoring the side of the brain that says creative service to the community.  There are exceptions, and some stations have enjoyed a large amount of financial gain and audience by being -gasp- different

Who says that every single story with large national or international importance should have a legitimate follow-up story by the local station?  This is a consultant’s piece of advice that says stations should “take ownership” of a story.

There are some excellent sidebars that can be done:

Check on local sexual predator listings to see how the law is enforced- Talk to Catholic church leaders and members about their spiritual leader’s illness-  You get the drift.

But you have also seen the silly localizations. 

I suspect that if someone manages to clone a T-Rex out of that tissue they found in some bones…and the thing got loose…the next thing we would see in a newscast is a story on whether it was possible any T-Rexes were in our neighborhood.

Leave the national and world stories with their own legs.  If there is a local angle, it will jump out at you.  If there isn’t- never mind the consultant- go cover a local story.