Sunday, March 29, 2009

Local News...snore.

Fox9 News
9:00 PM Broadcast
Sunday, March 29, 2009

Viewing Log

Story Preview: Weather, winter storm watch. Weatherwoman explains the danger and then says more will come up soon. 1 min

Top Story: Red River Valley in Fargo. Leah Beno, reporter, gives us information and updates on the flooding in Fargo. Interviewed people who are evacuated. Story shows stadbagging going on in Fargo at the Fargodome. Jody Ambros tells us about conerns about a dike that is failing in Fargo, and could possibly damage a nearby school, interviews with National Guard and volunteers. Also talks with community members about possible damage to the neighborhood. 5 mins

Local News Story: Shooting in nursing home in North Carolina. 1

Local News Story: 35W Construction project. Jeff Goldberg talks about expected delays in traffic and traffic changes. For 5 months one lane on each side of the freeway will be closed. He also talks abut changes, and shows what it will look like when project is finished. Interviews with drivers and residents. Summer of construction hassels. 3

Local News Story: House fire in Minneapolis 30 sec

National News Story: Delta and Northwest Airlines merger 30 sec

Preview to upcoming stories and commercial 1

Investigative Report: School Bus Safety. Reporter starts by following up with a family that was involved in a school bus crash in December. He then moves to “shocking” statistics: 1015 buses flunked the check done by the state inspectors. He then interviews the family hurt by the school bus crash in December about the failed inspections. The reporter then shows how safety inspections differ within school districts. He finds that a janitor is in charge of buses in St. Charles school district. because of lack of funds. He then compares St. Charles to Edina school districts and shows that metro schools have fewer problems compared to outstate schools. He also shows how buses vary due to the different companys. The story ends with a public service announcement about checking school buses safety in your area through myfox9.com 5 mins

Preview to upcoming stories and commercial 30 sec

National News Story: Aid for American auto industry, brief story about CEO of GM stepping down 1 min

National New Story: Alaskan volcano erupting 1 min

National News Story: Wildfire contained in Arizona 1 min

Preview of upcoming stories and commercial 30 sec

Preview of upcoming stories and welcome back 30 sec

Local News Story: Paul Blume: Sending supplies to Red River Valley to help them rebuild the area. Interviews with Minneapolis residents about donating supplies and what they think about the flooding. ACE Hardware and Salvation Army are collecting items and Paul gives us information about donating and why we should donate. 3 mins

Weather: Upcoming storm. Start with chit chat between news anchors and weatherwoman followed by video of kids playing outside today and then warnings about winter storm warning coming up for the next few days. 5 mins

National News Story: Digital TV Coupons/switch to digital TV 1 min

National News Story: Bigger Paychecks 30 sec

Plug for Fox 9 Morning News and preview of upcoming stories 1 min

National News Story: Salmonella outbreak in Georgia Peanut Plant and possible new bill to 3mins

National News Story: Operation Toad Day Out 1 min

International News Story: Penguin deaths in Chile 1 min

International News Story: Anti-missile system in Japan 1 min

National News Story: Bill about education for illegal immigrants: reporter Claudia Cowan 3 mins

Health Story: Heart Risk to triathalon competetors and medications for heart problems. plug for myfox9news.com 2 mins

National News Story: Free Fishing licensues to MN residents when they turn 90 years old 30 sec

Entertainment News: Monsters vs. Aliens, Weekend Box Office 1 min

National News Story: Lights Out for Earth Hour 30 sec

Preview for upcoming stories and Fox9 News at 10, commericals 30 sec

National News: Whiskey thieves, still looking for theives 2 mins

Switches to Fox at 10 without transition (extra 15 minutes) recap of 9:00 news with a few extra short stories 15 mins

Analysis

The newscast started out with “local” news about the flooding in the Red River Valley. Though this is not really local news, it is close enough to us and many Minnesotans have family in Fargo, and so it can be considered local news. Local news was the first few stories, but after that, the news was all national or international, although little time was given to these stories.


The investigative report was one of the longest segments of the news broadcast. It started out talking about a family, drawing the viewer in and given reason as to why people should care about this story, as well as connecting emotions to it. After talking with the affected family, the investigation findings were presented. The family was asked to comment on these findings in the middle and at the end of the segment.

The broadcast was really long. One thing I noticed was when a story was over 3 minutes long, I started to get bored or frustrated. This could be due to the tone of the reporters or my short attention span while watching the news.

The other strange thing about the broadcast was that there was no sports news. The NCAA Tournament was played today, and a Big 10 team made it to the final 4. This was not included in the broadcast, although from 10:15-10:30 there was a 15 minute sports news broadcast which follows the 15 minute recap of the 9:00 news.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting observation about stories over 3 minutes long. It seems that coverage depth is sacrificed for the sake of being entertaining, which is too bad because how are we really supposed to learn anything from the news if they can't spend too much time on any one story? I feel that it's much like teaching; we can't spend too long on any one unit because we have so many other units and "standards" that we need to meet before June. How are students supposed to be able to think critically if they aren't given enough time to process before changing gears? Sort of a random connection, but it just popped into my head!

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  2. So true. At times i feel like the news is more focused on the time segments and staying on track rather than developing the story and information given. It is as if it is too much of a hassle to provide further information.

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  3. I watched this same broadcast! By 9:27 or so I realized that it was an hour long--specifically because I wondered why major sports news hadn't been covered. The hour was way too long. I wondered who actually sits for that long (unless doing a class assignment!). So much of "news" wasn't presented in a way such that it was made relevant to viewers' lives.
    I actually ended up watching another 30 min broadcast for this post.

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