I tuned in to the 4 NY News at 11 on NBC tonight to see if it was any different from the 6:30 edition of the CBS News I watched earlier this evening. Similar to the 6:30 program, the 11:00 news started off with an unnecessarily long segment about the Swine Flu hysteria. Immediately following this there was a short segment about a new illness called Raccoon Ringworm disease that has affected a teen and a newborn baby, leaving the former blind in one eye and the latter brain damaged. (I seem to remember Jon Stewart saying that Raccoon Flu was going to be the next big illness on his latest show. I guess he wasn’t that far off.) The remainder of the opening part of the program dealt with other depressing news such as the fire that left people homeless in Newark and a list of funerals scheduled to take place tomorrow.
The only news story that could be considered “political” was a segment about the current investigation that John Edwards is facing regarding the over $100,000 that his campaign supposedly paid the firm of a woman whom Edwards had an affair with. Personally, I wouldn’t even really consider this a political story, since it deals with a person who is no longer holding any public office. This is all right though because I do not think it is necessary for a local news program to have an excess of political content. The purpose of this type of news broadcast is to inform the public about issues that they can personally relate to. If people want to know about the day to day activities of politicians, then there are plenty of other places that they can go to get this information.
As far as news programs are concerned, I would have to say that the 4 NY News 11 was fairly entertaining. It had enough interesting content to make me want to keep watching and the anchors did a good job of making everything relatable to the average viewer. Even though I would not recommend it as a primary source of news intake, the 11:00 news is a great way to get a quick injection of local news stories.
The only news story that could be considered “political” was a segment about the current investigation that John Edwards is facing regarding the over $100,000 that his campaign supposedly paid the firm of a woman whom Edwards had an affair with. Personally, I wouldn’t even really consider this a political story, since it deals with a person who is no longer holding any public office. This is all right though because I do not think it is necessary for a local news program to have an excess of political content. The purpose of this type of news broadcast is to inform the public about issues that they can personally relate to. If people want to know about the day to day activities of politicians, then there are plenty of other places that they can go to get this information.
As far as news programs are concerned, I would have to say that the 4 NY News 11 was fairly entertaining. It had enough interesting content to make me want to keep watching and the anchors did a good job of making everything relatable to the average viewer. Even though I would not recommend it as a primary source of news intake, the 11:00 news is a great way to get a quick injection of local news stories.
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