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Is your local news as bad as ours?

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Here in 'small market' San Antonio, our 3 major locals briefly mention local news, but seem to have plenty of airtime for goofy, silly internet stories that have nothing to do with our town. Sure we're nothing but a lil' ol miminum wage tourist trap pretending to be a real city, but at least tell us about the clown that emptied 3 magazines from an AK-47 a few houses down from mine, or about the poor girl who jumped off of the roof of the mental clinic on Sunday night. But, wait! There's something much more important, breaking news from 'that part of town', a "private" citizen's cat has choked on its hairball! No wonder people laugh at our town.
 
Well, you're not going to hear about the "poor girl". Suicides have been verboten for years, unless there's some mitigating factor such as, it was a well-known person or it happened in the county jail, etc.
 
San Antonio has a long, long, long tradition of cheesy tv news, going back over 50 years. Back in the 60's, I recall it being a steady diet of police/fire blotter stuff, all one after the other, complete with overhyped anchor narration as the dramatic symphonic music swelled in the background.

All this goes back to the tabloid battle of years past between the San Antonio Express-News and the old San Antonio Light, which set the SA news tone for decades.
 
That was a nasty end to that newspaper rivalry. IIRC the Light bought the Express-News and then turned off the Light (pardon the pun.) That would be like Belo buying crosstown WOAI-TV and then shutting down KENS.
 
Oh gosh, San Antonio TV news in the 60s! Twelve Star Final! Car wrecks galore with dramatic music instead of nat sound! And The Purple Pagent march as the show intro!

Ah, San Antonio!
 
The Tyler News Is usually SUPER local Anchors don't appear to wear make-up. And Generally just sucks. Not uncommon to see Stations there share News People.
 
No, Dallas/Ft.Worth TV news is good almost GREAT. I love see small market news around the Country. I like to see how much people have to learn to be in the Top 10 TV markets in the nation. I do not understand why small market tv stations are not training the TV news staff. I guess they want staff to stay at that station and not move up. You not have to move up if they go to the big markets and see what they are doing in the newscasts and how to run the station. Small market news people have to shoot, write, and report story like they are in TOP 10 market TV like Dallas/Ft. Worth etc. You see a lot of small tv stations ratings go up and life at the stations be better. Small TV stations buy good or NEW HD equipment, ENG trucks, sets, and other stuff help a lot to pick up look.

Dan the MAN!!
The North TEXAS Radio MAN!!
 
Small market stations are caught in a bind. They don't have money to pay experienced people. So once their inexperienced people get any good they leave... if they're into money and career advancement.
 
Over the past two decades, I've lived in Dallas, San Antonio, and Phoenix. Dallas newscasts were top-rate, relatively serious in tone (during the news portion), and generally covered the serious news of the day. San Antonio was prone to the car crash/police blotter mentality, but the main problem was over-the-top anchors like just about anyone at WOAI, Marrou and Cook at KENS. In my mind, most of the people at top-rated KSAT was just phoning it in with the notable exception of Leslie Mouton and weekend met John Honore (who should be chief met there).

Unfortunately, Phoenix is closer to San Antonio than Dallas. Of course, the market is larger and the staffs are much larger than San Antonio, but the quality of the news here is not great. To me, the Phoenix newscasts are more like lifestyle shows with a bit of news, weather, and sports sprinkled in.
 
formeraa said:
Unfortunately, Phoenix is closer to San Antonio than Dallas. Of course, the market is larger and the staffs are much larger than San Antonio, but the quality of the news here is not great. To me, the Phoenix newscasts are more like lifestyle shows with a bit of news, weather, and sports sprinkled in.
Click to expand...

With the possible exception of the Morning Show news on KSAZ I would agree with you. Ron Hoon does a good job of covering the most important national stories and local stories affecting early morning viewers. The midday news is largely a repeat of the morning though and the evening and nightly news shows are useless.

KPHO is sensationalist (except weekdays midday) and KNXV is just silly. None do a thorough job of sports and good luck trying to get anything worthwhile on JUCO or high school sports (except KPNX which does do a wrap-up football show during the season).

All have way too many interruptions (read: commercials - usually loud, blaring car dealers).

I can't recommend any of the other local Phoenix weekday news shows but KTVK and KPNX seem to do a reasonable job on their Saturday AM news blocks (not award-winning mind you but competent).
 
landtuna --

That's a very good analysis of Phoenix news! I do agree that the weekend morning newscasts are relatively solid. Usually, on weekdays, I turn on 12 News at 6:30am to get the news and then turn to 3 at 7am to get Gina's very thorough traffic reports.

As for San Antonio, my complaint was the relative lack of weekend am news (except for KENS). The theory was that San Antonians didn't wake up early on weekend am's or something like that. Then, there was the ill-fated Snooze 9 San Antonio 24 hour station! It was beyond awful.
 
In Houston, KTRK the ABC O&O has been known for years as the Blood and Guts station. If it bleeds it leads. I think they learned it from the San Antonio stations.

I've circulated a local joke for years that features KTRK anchor Dave Ward starting the 6pm news with this:

"Jesus Christ returned to Earth this afternoon. Exclusive coverage in a moment, but first, "MURDER IN DOWNTOWN HOUSTON.
ABC 13 reporter Joe Blow was first on the scene....."

I really do believe at least one of the Houston TV stations would make The Second Coming of Christ their second story.

Actually, Houston has one station that's a few notches above the others in terms of intelligent local news reporting. KHOU the CBS affiliate can actually present a 30 minute newscast without insulting your intelligence. Wish I could say the same for KPRC and KTRK.
 
FilioScotia said:
In Houston, KTRK the ABC O&O has been known for years as the Blood and Guts station. If it bleeds it leads. I think they learned it from the San Antonio stations.

I've circulated a local joke for years that features KTRK anchor Dave Ward starting the 6pm news with this:

"Jesus Christ returned to Earth this afternoon. Exclusive coverage in a moment, but first, "MURDER IN DOWNTOWN HOUSTON.
ABC 13 reporter Joe Blow was first on the scene....."

I really do believe at least one of the Houston TV stations would make The Second Coming of Christ their second story.
Click to expand...

LOCAL FIRST! ;D
 
I haven't really noticed the "blood and guts" news format here, probably because after 40 something years, I'm desensitized to it. But that may have been in the past. Now its mostly useless weird internet urban legends from out of state. The local stations do report the usual local crime and a few 'feel good' PR stories, but never report real news. Since property developers run this city and pull all of our city/county officials' strings, the local media can't bite the boot that kicks them. Keep them entertained with pretty pictures so that they will ingore that man behind the curtain. Even the news staions websites are a joke. No local news, just internet ads and crap.
 
I have seen local newscasts from all over the country, large and small market, good and bad. I have to say, hands down, in terms of style and presentation D/FW and LA probably win hands down. As far as news content, though, everybody sucks, because everyone has a different idea of what constitutes "news" (other than obvious breaking news, and even then it's all about beating a dead horse). In Anchorage, news usually revolves around drunk Inuit eskimos beating up and/or killing their girlfriends/boyfriends, the latest from the volcano watch, and just goofy small market stuff. By contrast, the Florida panhandle (Panama City/Dothan/Pensacola) usually does a lot of lifestyle stuff and the thinly-disguised VNR (although by now everyone and his dog is out on the beaches in the panhandle waiting for the oil to come drifting in). Honolulu is kind of stupid because the same anchors are on all three channels thanks to the LMAs in place - same with Abilene, Texas, although it's not the anchors on the same stations, it's the reporters. Sometimes a story that aired on KRBC at six will air on KTAB at 10...with the same reporter.

D/FW news is usually a bit more thoughtful, although the ruptured gas pipeline story the other day ceased to be "breaking news" as soon as they shut off the gas and put out the fire, yet the horse was apparently not dead enough yet. And the Jerry Jones drunken comments to cellphone camera story was lampooned quite admirably by Dale Hansen on WFAA/8, who quite correctly indicated that it wasn't news to begin with...but apparently any time Jerry opens his mouth it's news around here.

KXAS/5 is of the "leading bleeder" category, KDFW/4 gets a little sensational sometimes (they are the biggest violator of the "breaking news" issue), and KTVT/11 is usually pretty solid (I don't watch KDAF/33). But the irritating thing about 11 is that they also program KTXA/21's newscast, so it's like watching "11 Lite". But in my opinion D/FW news is still the cream of the crop in the top 10.
 
Phoenix in a nutshell:

3-KTVK: Pull a WIAT. Only one anchor for the news per newscast. Horrible high school sports program. Only thing that seems to work is GMAZ Saturday. Great things could be in the sights for 3, but they need a rework.

5-KPHO: Running ads that say "News without the Hype" actually hype the news...?

10-KSAZ: Best in town. A bit flashy, but their 9pm team has been relatively unchanged since the mid-90s (except for Robin Garrison leaving). Needs weekend morning news.

12-KPNX: Went downhill in the middle of the decade and managed to hold on by a thread to their ratings - but then NBC nosedived.

15-KNXV: Why do they even try? Maybe it's just because of their affiliation contract. Nobody I know watches 15 at all. I wish I were able to see what 15 looked like in the mid-90s.
 
A new low for TV news:

KPHO has been running an obit crawler during their noon news. Apparently it is a paid ad because it obviously does not list everyone who died the previous day and is sponsored by a web site.
 
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