[BC] Localism

[Rich Wood]

------ At 04:31 AM 9/16/2006, Alan Kline wrote: -------

>I'm beginning to think that this report was scrapped not because of some
>grassy-knoll theory, but because the thing was so badly written and
>reasoned that even Michael Powell realized that he'd look like a fool
>for actually releasing it.

As he should. I got a kick out of the on-location news seconds. My 
market's electronic media is completely out of town corporate-owned. 
If I see one more useless on-location news report just to show how 
well the mobile unit works I think I'll spit up. This market's 
stations send meteorologists to every corner of their coverage area 
just to show us it's raining. The best station for news, owned by Lin 
TV Corp. does 90 minutes of local news beginning at 5pm. This is a 
typical New England market where there are dozens of small towns in a 
variety of counties. They've recently opened additional news bureaus 
in counties that were served by a speeding mobile unit. They do a 
surprising amount of hard news along with the usual puff.

This is TV. Radio is a different matter. I still have no feel for 
which station is the market's crisis station. I get my radio news 
from WBZ, nearly 100 miles away. Because of their signal they tend to 
cover most of the state. We have a couple of surprisingly good local 
newspapers. A while ago a large group owner was talking about closing 
its local news operation and using one of the Metro Traffic-type news 
services out of Hartford. Instead, they affiliated with the George W. 
Bush radio network, also known as FOX. I don't know what they do for 
local news. I'd have to endure Limbaugh and Hannity just to find out. 
I think I'd rather volunteer in Iraq.

Rich