Local News

I generally avoid watching the local news. Mostly it is because of the large amount of commercials that are aired, in combination with the focus on sports, weather, and human interest stories. It seems like the local news programs need to show a balance of all the components of a half hour news program, so in order to accomplish that they avoid detailed and thorough reporting.

If I want to find the forecast I can do so easily on the weather channel if I really need to. I don't follow sports at all, and that is a large chunk of what local news covers. Also, the world news and national news is covered much more thoroughly in by other sources, and the local stations realize this (that is not their market), so if I want those stories I can usually find them either on line or NPR will cover them quite well and succinctly.

I think it is important to not rely on one source for all 'news.' It is good to watch Fox news, CNN, MSNBC, look at Google News, read Al Jazeera and the BBC's websites, listen to NPR, read the paper when it's available, and then of course read magazines once in a while. Basically, to consume a diverse diet of news. One of my favorite things to watch is CSPAN. Although it is boring, it is interesting to see some of the senate hearings and subcommittee hearings.