Journalism is in a world of shit. It's not just what's going on with bloggers, websites like Drudge and Huffington, or the talking heads of political crap at FOX and MSNBC. Local media never ceases to amaze me at its inability to resist salacious details that involve the rich and famous.
No, I'm not talking about Lindsey Lohan or Tiger Woods, I'm talking about a story that two local television stations aired. Both stations basically reported the same story which was much ado about nothing. What's even more laughable is that the third local TV news operation did a story today about the public outrage over one of the station's coverage of the non-story. It was a thinly veiled attempt to basically cover the same story everyone else had covered. I wanted to vomit.
The irony in it for me is that our newsroom had known the details of the story for several weeks. In fact the night before the story broke on our competition I had an extensive conversation with one of our journalists about where we had gotten. We pretty much knew that there was nothing newsworthy to report. TMZ and Perez Hilton we're not.
I'm proud of our organization, the thoroughness, the hard work, and the ability of our staff to reach out to their sources to make sure that we didn't make the same mistake that our competitors did. It's a wonder anybody watches television news in this day and age. I hope and pray that we never fall prey to the quick and dirty, or the slim and sleaze that has marginalized the profession that I love.
The first line of your post? True and sad. What's even sadder is that TV news can't see what it's becoming.
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