I chose to do all my stories during the same week, which happened to be last week and I regret that a lot. It was a bad week because like usual in Oklahoma we had some crazy weather especially for this time of year so most of the news coverage was all about the coming storm, preparations for the storm, picture of people outdoors when the snow was falling, pictures and coverage of people who had wrecked, etc. This in itself really drove me crazy because it shows what is important to the station. Yes, weather is important but taking up the whole newscast except for the small 3-minute sports section and usually only about two other random somewhat news-ish stories, seriously? I think there are way WAY more important stories out there than checking the weather map twenty times over the entire newscast and a map that looks like it is straight out of a coloring book!
As for the crime stories I think that the coverage is of course not representative of the true population over the area that the news stations I chose, cover. However what it is the worst is the news anchor that introduces all the stories. Most every night except for probably two nights a white 30-ish year old man anchored alone at the news desk. Most times if another anchor appeared to report the story they were a minority either a black female or a Hispanic female but the ratio of their appearances to the white male appearance is ridiculous. I’ve never really paid attention to local newscasts and what they deliver. I do know the obvious that most of what they deliver is the blood which don’t get me started makes me crazy because I want news that affects my daily life not a police report sheet. But the fact that this week’s news revolved completely around weather is insane because clearly they feel that nothing else that happened not just at home but internationally is of complete unimportance and relevance to their community’s daily life. As for who anchors the news it just reminds me of Anchorman in the sense that middle-aged white males rule the evening news desk.
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They do?
ReplyDeleteI think it is amazing how we never really see the small ratio of white to minority anchors until we look for it. Once we're trained to see and make ourselves see the difference, then we do. But until then we're nearly entirely oblivious, or maybe we don't want ourselves to see it because we know it shouldn't be right so we just perpetuate our own denial subconsciously, or that could just be a bunch of psychological babble, but I thought it was an interesting point.
ReplyDeleteSo I also wonder if it's a regional concept, like I wonder if it's ssame or different in other states or just here in Oklahoma. I'm sure it has to be a consistent trend in other regions, but I guess we won't know until we can construct a giant wall of monitors with a different station playing on each.