Television news isn't all it could or should be
Television news isn't allit could or should be
EDITOR:
What's new? You may never know if you don't pay somebody to tell you. In TV news, the going rate and the bottom line rule. National TV trims hard news for a cheaper product: entertainment and sensations. It's cheaper to ride a sensational story to death than to nose out news. ABC, CBS and NBC news now synchronize their commercials, to rob you of the choice your clicker gives you.
You buy your news: cable, dish, newspapers, newsmagazines. TV loses money on commercial-free crisis-coverage, but recoups. It gives health news from journals and news services. Big deal. Sending reporters cost too much? Does nothing happen weekends? No overtime to cover it. But TV news hypes itself: watch our user-friendly news and weather shows.
Local news is a station's big moneymaker, so ads hype news programs. What do you get? No noon news program from one station. Tune in late, hard news is gone and it's Weather Time! Often you get network news warmed over. Local news reports through the day too often look suspiciously like yesterday's warmed over. One 6 p.m. lead story was construction delays you'd face on South Avenue. Lots of sports, countless commercials. In Traficant's sentencing, local TV pre-empted 6:30 network news: would he be fined? Wow! Where were all those public-spirited newshounds when he was doing crimes in the first place? Staked out in a cold car following leads about Jim's wrongdoing? I never heard much of that. Coverage costs, and it can rock a few boats.
National TV news is too much -- and too little. Too much in seldom seeing an ambulance it didn't like to chase. Dan Rather admits, "If it bleeds, it leads." When 9/11 came, TV was milking the Condit/Levy story. After 9/11, you'd think they'd never existed. Networks give half the news hour they used to, and little foreign news beyond bleeding Israel/Palestine.
I believe in the All-American capitalist democratic creed that you deserve a worthwhile product for your money. I'm not sure that all TV talkers, with U.S.-flag-pinned lapels, do. We're not getting the product TV's self-hyped news outfits say we are getting. We'll keep on getting less and less, if we keep on co-operatively playing the role of advertisers' bulls eye.
CHARLES L. REID
Boardman
One less place whereeveryone knew your name
EDITOR
During the first week of September, a popular family-owned restaurant decided to call it quits -- the Lodge restaurant in Austintown, which most people would recall as the A-frame on Mahoning Avenue.
It was almost like the popular show of the '80s, "Cheers," where you went in and everybody knew your name.
Gus, Connie and Rich Lepore put in many hours daily, and in its time it had a great working crew. I spent 14 years with them and felt like a part of their family, as did many others.
We will surely miss this great family-run restaurant that gave you more than just a plate of food. Thanks for all the wonderful memories.
DARLENE DelFRATTE
Youngstown
The greatest danger
EDITOR
A $6 trillion national debt and still overspending! Another 12-digit deficit and what have we to show? Enough with waging war all around the world for so-called "homeland security." Morally it is wrong, and we cannot afford it. What happened to the 1994 Republican "Contract with America"? No more rhetoric, please. I am certain that reckless and corrupt politicians will cause more harm to this great nation than any act of terror.
JOHN ISABELLA III
Struthers