Where's the NEWS?  Today local stations give us a daily diet of ghetto shootings and armed robberies.   They're empty calories because cop news happens in every large city every day.   TV stations cheat us from important journalism because convenience store robberies and car wrecks are cheap to cover.

Real news is what affects people.  That'd be our cities' economy !   Jobs, taxes, prices.  Health costs. The legislature.  But local crime stories are cheaply gathered.  Newzies don't have to dig for those--police scanners bark out the addresses for roving news photographers.   They call the police PR guy to get the police version of the details--just enough narration to cover the 30 seconds of video.

Stations have satellite trucks to cover the state capital and the laws legislators are passing, but they're mostly parked behind the stations.  So we don't find out what happens until the laws are already passed and sometimes reported in the paper.  Of course, they'll cover political sex scandals--just not the laws that affect how our elderly parents are cared for, or how the schools are doing. 

Suburban news?  Forget it!   Stations don't have enough staff to cover where you live and so schools and city halls have it pretty good--no TV reporters to lift up the rocks and show you the worms and slugs and roly-poly's who have sweetheart deals to profit from school districts and city, county governments.   If TV comes into the burbs, it's just a guest appearance, because the PAPER's beat reporter broke a story, and the TV stations just want a free piece of it!  After that story dies out, you won't see a TV reporter for MONTHS, til it happens again!  They're like firemen.  Here today when there's smoke, but otherwise, sitting in the station watching TV.

 In stations all over the country, there are those who work in TV who started out well-meaning, dedicated professionals.  Sadly, they have little control over the way TV managers and accountants staff their newsrooms and define the news they'll cover.  A great number eventually leave after a few years--disillusioned over the pressure, superficiality, and nomadic lifestyle of moving from one city to the next.   TV work can be exciting and occasionally satisfying.  But not what TV News once was, and not what it should be. 

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