November 14th, 2007
Channel 11 - 10:00pm
10:00 - Patient care is suffering because of a nurse shortage. Nurses are worried, stressed, and understaffed. Minnesota needs a new state law for staffing.
10:02 - Funeral for police officer at the Basilica. He was struck by a squad car and killed. "He would have been overwhelmed by the turnout." The drama is further heightened as we hear shots fired to honor his service.
10:03 - 6 uninvited guests at Arlington High School in St. Paul. (Big deal at the school and all the news stations showed up, but only 15 seconds on the news).
10:03 - "No Special Session" tax bill.
10:04 - 35W bridge house vote. Bachman voted No. John Kline voted No.
10:04 - 35 soldiers come home from Iraq
10:04 - War funding bill - end combat in Dec 2008
10:05 - OJ Simpson will go to trial.
10:05 - Power outage by mouse in SE Campus area.
10:05 - You aren't getting enough sleep. Poll on Kare11.com
10:06 - Forecast coming up AND a fish story that puts yours to shame. Plus, commuting, next on the Extra.
Commercials
10:10 - Twin Cities is trying to put the brakes on the ill effects of their commute. The amount of stress during commuting and its negative impact on the body can exceed that of riot police and combat pilots in a crisis situation. Moral of the story: change your lifestyle if you have a long commute. This was then followed by a dumb joke.
10:16 - Coming up tomorrow night on the KARE11 Extra - Alzheimers - "so many families can relate..."
10:17 - Weather - Belinda Jenson yaps for a while about winter survival awareness week. Pack your car with these items and whoops, the producer forgot to include a candy bar.
10:18 - Sneak peek at Tuesday and Wednesday - big Thanksgiving travel days. Predicted a storm Tuesday. (Where was it?)
10:19 - Finally, the weather! WINDY, but calmer over night. Nothing major coming up.
10:20 - In case you've never watched the news in your life, sports is up next.
Commercials
10:25 - I tend to lose focus during the sports. T-Wolves, plus other basketball stuff. Early signing period for high school basketball players. One kid is going to the U of M.
10:26 - Division 1 basketball letters
10:26 - Chester Taylor starting Vikes (?). 2000 tickets left for the game.
10:28 - Winner for baseball coach something. The fish story is COMING.
Commercials
10:32 - (Leno must start at 10:35). 360 pound grouper caught in the Gulf of Mexico. One fillet is 53 pounds. Ha ha ha - and another dumb joke - something about finding several small children inside.
So, as it turns out - the commercials take up about 1/3 of the show, weather and sports get about 3 minutes each, the actual news gets about 6 minutes, and the Extra which is generally a "consumer/health/entertainment feature story" sucks up it's own 6 minutes. When you break it down, the amount of actual news that might be beneficial to the average viewer is next to nothing. 10:04 was a speed round, tag-team effort by the anchors to see how many stories they could get cover in a minute. I had a tough time keeping up with my pen. As I reflect, I think one of the most irritating things about the whole thing is that there was hardly any news about what is going on in Minneapolis or St. Paul. A power outage due to a mouse got the same number of seconds as Arlington High School's intruders? What the? And who cares about OJ Simpson anyway? There was nothing "local" about the news during this broadcast. And isn't that what it's all supposed to be about? Local news? We have the world news at 5:30pm for those interested in a tiny snapshot of what's happening globally. The news is just as high paced as the society in which we live. I suppose that they are appealing to the on-the-go American who isn't going to take the time to listen to lengthy coverage on important issues. The strategy is to thrust information at viewers, with happy banter in between, in order to keep the audience engaged and coming back for more. Ending with a silly story about a giant fish is perhaps a technique to combat the inevitable negative news that is reported. As we all know, the news is skewed in such a way that we never get the whole story. We simply get tiny blurbs that tell us what "they" want us to know - in turn influencing our perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs.
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1 comment:
Right on, Sister. I came to many of the same conclusions you did. My biggest gripe was the inane anchor banter that occurred transitionally between "stoties"-- okay, that was a lie, my BIGGEST gripe was the amounf of product promotion & FOX plugs. I mean, isn't the news supposed to be UNBIASED? Sheesh. It's enough to make me not want to watch the news. Oh yeah, I don't.
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