6:00 News

For this post I watched New 4 New York which is an affiliate of NBC. The program starts off with the newscasters talking about how Swine Flu has hit more victims in the city but no one was seriously ill. They seem to break things down first at a local level then they talk about national events/international things. Then they'll talk about the latest in sports and entertainment with some fun or light hearted story towards the end of the broadcast with the weather. Its just interesting to see how and which stories make it to air and how the media feels what to label important or not important. A lot of the news is about things happening around us and our communities and many times there are negative stories about someone getting shot or so and so dying. It all is rather depressing but yet it still conjures up the public interest. Typically we'll also hear about public personalities or politicians making fools of themselves and for the better of our entertainment. The local news tends to come off as an informal look at the news and many times the newscasters tend to joke around or act foolish and then try to pull off looking smart or educated about a story topic to create the appearance that they are a legitimate source of information. I typically walk away from the local news with the feeling that I just lost that time and I will never get it back, I could have just as easily and more efficiently have gone online and seen the headlines.