Local TV

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Of course you're right, there are some stations in the US that do put out decent News still. Boston Stations However are practically State wide in their coverage. Generally they would Cover News Not only in Boston and Massachusetts but also the rest of New England. They're closer to a National than a Local Model in many ways. There's a lot going on in Boston. However, if you pick 50 mid size cities in the US there's just crime and politics to report on. Even their PBS station (WGBH) regards itself as better than practically any other PBS station in the country and sees itself almost as a National Broadcaster.

If any city in the UK had the levels of Crime of many US cities we would be in crisis mode.

While the US certainly has a higher murder rate than the UK, the UK has a higher total crime rate, including more robberies. Still, I feel totally safe in both countries.

And we're getting way off-topic.

I'd agree we might be going off topic, but there is a point. Local News is easy to cover when it's a big story. Robberies might be more common in the UK but they're not big news. Murder is. The other big news stories come from local politics. On this side of the pond politics are more centralised so stories that might be local in the states are more likely to be National or Regional here.

That's why the ITV system and the size of the regions was probably the best way to cover local stories here. The population size and area of coverage was just right in many areas to provide a service that was roughly correct for the country. Really what the UK needs is a General entertainment station with opt outs at 6 and 10.30 for local News and maybe an hour of local shows every day just outside of prime time. Sounds a bit like ITV in the 80's and early 90's.

Interesting. Many keep saying this UK local tv is following a US-style model for local tv. Frankly its not and never has done. Aside from the LondonLive's screwed up programming schedule, most of these stations slates pretty much resemble Public Access channels seen across Canada,US, Australia.


Most people in other countries have a superficial "Anchorman" view of US local news. Yes there are offenders. But the local news in my city its full of investigations, important stories and pertinent relevant information about the people using my tax money, but also investigation into government waste, etc. Today there was an investigation into why a person who was wearing a monitor ankle bracelet was not being monitored probably and committed a horrible crime. But they went deeper into the story and discovered there are gaps in the monitoring agency system and because they launched an investigation people are suspended and there are going to be changes to this system.

There are a couple of stories in the MEN that would warrant questions IMO.
How come the councils are making always making cuts. Find out why! Where is the money going?! Rather than hear about after the fact. Get in their face and ask why. Its funny how public, school, police officials, business owners, etc get their crap in gear when a tv camera is stuck in their face and they are seen to refuse to answer to the public what they are doing. They are more stories being covered on US local news than just "if it bleeds it leads" as some seem to wrongly assume.

[quote="Mouseboy33" pid="933287"]

IMHO this is actually one of the worst aspects of American journalism which sadly is used here far too often. There are many reasons why people can't answer questions on Camera, from legal to just being plain shy. It makes the innocent look guilty with the correct editing. It's also lazy journalism a lot of the time replacing research. Too often in the US there's no proper right of reply. Journalists have often been wrong but corrections either don't appear or are low down a running order.

Luckily here on this side of the world there is some sort of protection against this kind of stuff. That's why Local News here is so much more expensive. You can't just broadcast anything. Make a mistake and you pay in the courts.

Bluntly, it's also a case of resources - I think many journalists working on local publications would like the chance to work on bigger stories, harder hitting ones, make big headlines. But when you're say, a two person team faced with filling half an hour in a day, or a small newsroom filling your paper full of pages, it's more about little wins and trying to get those occasional big ones when you get a chance at something you really can devote time and effort in to.

There's the whole 'do fewer things, better' mantra, which would be great if the people working on stuff were involved more in decisions...

Everybody knows why they're making cuts - it's a national story how the government has frozen council tax, and then reduced other council income streams. Every single council in the country is being forced to make unpopular cuts, and everybody is quite happy to blame central government of asked.

There's no story there whatsoever.

With regards to the other story you highlighted, that's just a good old bit of tabloid fearmongering, rather than an actual proper story worth investigating.

Yes - though I recently learned of this sobering stat.

In the UK in 2011/2012 (financial year) there were 50 violent fire-arm deaths (excluding accidents and suicides)
In the US in 2011 (calendar year), there were 11,068 violent fire-arm deaths (again excluding accidental death and suicide)

That is a factor of 221 times more. Of course the US has approximately 5x the population of the UK.

If you take that into account the US only has 45 times the number of violent deaths from fire-arms than the UK. No wonder there are shootings to fill US local news...

We have fewer than one violent death (excluding accidents and suicide) from shooting a WEEK on-average across the whole of the UK, the US has more than 200... We really are very different countries.

Phone hacking scandal : Pot/Kettle. Curious what local news exists there? US tv stations operate under similar libel laws as does the UK broadcasters. So Im not sure what you are basing your comments on.

There has been absolutely no suggestion of ANY involvement of broadcast TV or Radio journalists in phone hacking. We aren't talking about print media.

The UK has pretty strong libel laws, certainly stronger than the US (which is why some books that are printed in the US are not printed in the UK for instance, and why US citizens prosecute in the UK in preference to the US), and all the main broadcasters have complaints procedures that mean serious breaches are guaranteed a broadcast correction in a prominent position within the same timeslot as the original mistake that has been made.

LOL. Ok right.
Well enjoy your "expensive local news".

Not sure what you mean. But if you are questioning whether UK broadcast journalists were involved in phone hacking you're a long way wide of the mark.

Sky have been absolutely open about an e-mail hack when they were trying to trace the canoer who faked his own death - but no-one in the industry believes it was endemic at Sky, and neither do people believe that BBC or ITN journalists would stoop to it. It goes totally against everything that the two organisations stand for.