Management at Cleveland 19 News, nee Cleveland Action News, knows that competition for viewer eyeballs is fierce these days. They’re battling three other local TV stations on the air and on the web and it’s a daily battle to distinguish yourself as the hardest-hitting, most-honest, most-fair, most-everywhere game in town. With that in mind, we’re guessing, management put together a super helpful and high-minded mission statement of sorts to guide the station’s reporters in their pursuit of great journalism. But because this is local TV news, it’s a bit shorter than most mission statements. In fact, it’s pretty brief. It’s called the Getting Answers Checklist.
It starts with the basics (a good place to start!), rolls through Channel 19’s target audience (white middle-age mothers who don’t have college degrees!) and finishes with a bullet-point rundown of stories that would move the needle (aka: scary problems that 19’s bastion of talent should fix!). It’s posted in the newsroom and, should there be any doubt about the description of 19’s target demographic, it’s surrounded by pictures of middle aged white women doing things like sipping tea and hugging other women to drive home the point.
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2016.
That means it’ll be hands off for station reporters to tackle the county’s $1 billion debt…….but RGIII and his girlfriend MUST lead every broadcast – with breaking news updates – through Sunday morning.
19 Nooze is praying for blizzards, tornadoes, severe storms, and heavy snow…because they affect nobody else but M O M and the C H I L D R E N, doncha know.
Otherwise, it’s always gonna be about CRIME and staying SAFE…and SCAMMERS and staying SAFE, and SCARY dangerous products and staying SAFE, and crumbling bridges and being SAFE…also not being a VICTIM and staying SAFE…and keeping ME…ME…M O M…and my F A M I L Y… all cozy and warm and dry and…S A F E…because Channel 19, which needs to change its call letters to WPOS…subsists on promoting and inspiring and nurturing FEAR.
No wonder all these white middle-aged GED-level M O M types feel an overwhelming need for buying and carrying those pink pistols in their purses.
Chuckles the Clown
I thought that journalists were supposed to be about reporting what’s going on and letting the viewer decide…oh RIGHT…I forgot…we’d rather scare people and make them feel good after so we can make more money instead. Never mind!