Waste Not...

As a journalism major the state of news continues to drive me crazy, because most of what is on TV isn't actually news. The majority of the time it is a quick skimming of the day's headlines, largely ignoring the ramifications of those headlines on the world and then 10 minutes of tips on where to get the best deal on lettuce. On some levels, I can understand this for the 24-hour cable channels. That is a lot of time to kill and, much like MTV learned you can't just show music videos all the time, the cable news networks can't just show the news every hour of every day because often A) there is rarely enough breaking news to spread out and B) the news is depressing and depressing shows get bad ratings. With that understanding, it is the local news which drives me the craziest. Honestly, the news is supposed to be telling me about things happening in my area - also know as the things which will directly affect me - but too often the local Fox affiliate will speed through the story about fires or elections to do a story on the latest contestant voted off "American Idol". (Admittedly, I do not watch that show, but even if I did it would not be worthy of a update on the news. You don't see the CBS affiliate telling us what happened on that night's "NCIS", do you?) It just seems as though they gloss over the things which are important to talk about things which are not.

No where is their ability to waste seconds more evident than when it is time for the weather. I was watching the news the other night and all I wanted to know was if it was going to rain the next day. First I got a recap of the day's weather and then was teased that tomorrow's weather would be coming up next. But, when it was finally time for the full weather segment I didn't get the actual weather. First I had to hear all about the weather of the day which was now over. (I'm all for highlights, but perhaps save them for the sports segment?) Then I was told about weather patterns across the country. I'm sure if I was travelling I would appreciate the report, except I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, so how about just telling me if I need to mow the lawn tomorrow or if I can wait until Friday? It just feels as though the entire segment rundown has been done in the reverse order. When the weatherperson finally came on to give the next day's forecast they then stood right in front the graphic which told me what I wanted to know. It was extremely frustrating, even as I know that I'm spending all this time waiting for a forecast which has an above-average chance of being completely wrong.

Still, at least they eventually got to the weather. Occasionally the weather people waste time on stuff that doesn't even relevant and that is even worse. Sunday night I was watching the news and the local weatherperson was recapping the weekend, since we all love history so much. He mentioned that Saturday was high-70s but very humid, while Sunday was mid-80s but dry. He then told viewers that the station wanted to know which weather they preferred and to go to the station's Facebook page to take their survey. For the second we'll ignore taking time which could be spent talking about important issues to recap a weather pattern which was over and never coming back. What I am interested in is the survey aspect of this report. Why, do they care which weather pattern people preferred? It is not like they have any control over it and could give us one versus the other once they knew the results. It is one thing to ask people to take a useless survey about an inconsequential new item, but to ask them to take a survey about something in which the collected data will literally be useless to everyone involved seems even worse. I've always wondered why people are friends with corporations on Facebook, because it doesn't get you much beyond the occasional coupon. But being friends with something like the local news station doesn't even get you that and this survey just seems as though it confirms what a silly idea that is.

I don't think I would mind stuff like this if I knew they had hours of time to kill. But with commercials the local news has about 22 minutes to tell me about the things which should be most important to me as a Massachusetts resident, so when they waste time during a segment like the weather asking people to take a survey, it seems to be extra wasteful. Honestly, it is already longer than it needs to be. The weather segment could be cut down to two minutes, tops, and no one would mind - just tell us what is happening tomorrow, show us the 7-day graphic (getting out of the way when you do) and everyone would be happy. (We've apparently all agreed to let them talk about the day which is now over, even though standing up there and recapping what just happened is the equivalent of that guy who walks by and says, "Boy, yesterday was hot!" That guy is extremely annoying in real life, so imagine how it feels when they are taking up time on TV.) The fact that they get four minutes to pontificate about weather on the other side of the country is astounding. That is the responsibility of the people travelling, not the local weatherguys.

With knowing how little time they need versus how much time they get, letting them take any more just feels like the weathermen are getting greedy. That is why this Facebook survey incident was the tipping point for me - it is time to start giving more time back to the actual news. Even if the news directors want to use those extra couple of minutes for a fluff piece about local school kids who are raising money for some charity (which still isn't really news), I would rather see than than a graphic telling me it was hot on this date in 2002. Now, if the weathermen feel as though they are being short-changed they can rest easy knowing their salaries will be unaffected and they can make up that camera time whenever there is a blizzard or hurricane coming, because those situations actually count as legitimate news. But even then they need to be careful with how they use their airtime, because the second they start talking about how this hurricane compares to one from 1860, I'm going to call for the station to cut their mike off. I'm sure the guy in sports is always angling for a couple extra minutes, so don't give us an excuse to give it to him.