I think one of the results of all the cutbacks in newsroom budgets has been a lack of originality in news coverage and a laziness when it comes to following up on stories.
Has anyone besides me noticed that local television news, and to a lesser extent newspapers and national TV news shows, aren't able to, for instance, tell us ahead of time about potential dangers? We don't get reminders about sharks here in Florida as spring arrives, but as soon as we get the first bite, we'll get a rash of stories about sharks, shark attacks, how to avoid shark bites, are our children safe anywhere at all any more, and blah blah blah.
That will last until a bicycle rider gets hit and killed by a car. Them we'll get, "Ten Ways to Ride Safely," "Bikes: Two-Wheeled Death Machines," and "Bike Helmets: Is Your Child's Brain Really Safe?" And the shark stories will be forgotten.
It's fine for media to report what has happened, but I'd like to see more about what might or will happen. That would be helpful.
Then there's the lack of followup, as with the young woman who went missing in Aruba or the lone surviving coal miner in West Virginia. For more than a month it was all-Aruba, all the time. Then suddenly the media feeding frenzy ends and silence sets in. They whip us up for weeks and then let us down as fast as a cold french fry. Time to move on to the next frenzy.
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