The biggest shock I have had watching local TV news recently came during today's 12 noon newscast on KSN. The lead story was Governor Matt Blunt's appearance in Joplin to sign the immigrant initiative bill. That was a worthwhile story, but the question remains- Why didn't KSN lead with the opening of the Downstream Casino Resort? After all, it has been the station's top story from the casino's opening Saturday all the way through this morning's broadcast. This must be the story of the century.
Seriously, the opening of the casino was an important story and should have been covered, but the fawning coverage provided by KSN was a bit much. The only negative ever mentioned was the traffic and since that also served as an indicator of the casino's popularity, that might not even be considered a negative.
More balanced coverage would serve KSN's viewership much better. While the big crowds and the traffic are big stories for opening night, a longer package featuring a closer examination of the effect the casino's opening will have on the area economy, on the proposed Cherokee County, Kansas, casino, on crime in the area, on increasing problems with addicted gamblers, and the effect, if any, on other regional casinos...and that's just a few possibilities off the top of my head.
Of course, the fawning coverage might have something to do with the advertising money the casino is spending with KSN.
7 comments:
Randy,
You make a great point. Very little time is ever devoted to the down side of yet another casino. There are so many people that I know that have been effected by gambling addictions that I hated to see another casino open up. I'm sure I am in the minority. Thanks for at least making a point to mention it in your blog.
How about doing their entire 5pm and 6pm Newscasts from the Casino on Wednesday Night. Gary and Tiffany were in front of slot machines extolling the virtues of the facility. When a magazine runs a big story on a restaurant and then a few pages later you see the restaurant ad, you figure out quickly that the story was the reward for the Ad. KSN does that a lot. I guess there is nothing wrong with running info-mercials. Most stations do it. I just don't understand how you can call it news. I guess the point is moot because based on what I saw from your post of news viewership, the public has already figured that out. When Gary and Tiffany learned their trade, do you think they took classes in pandering to advertisers or is that a trick they picked up from their local management?
someone at kod did a story on casinos in Miami a few years back. it showed the good and the bad
The reality is that all the stations receive way too much money from the casinos to ever do a truth piece on the casinos-tens to hundreds of thousands a year. These were tried a couple times years ago. At least one made air. Extreme upper management and sales came back and told the woe of having to try and save the account because of the truth story that ran, and it was stricken down forever.
You will never see a station with enough balls to run one of these stories because the casinos have bought their agenda with advertising money.
The Nexstar group is particuarly bad about advertisers essentially having the ultimate say so in whether a story runs or not.
You that watch Springfield stations will never see any adverse publicity about Branson either. The TV stations are sold out to the business people in Branson. I have brought things to their attention, and they ignore it.
The merchants raised hell with the stations about the flooding The Landing, so you only saw that mentioned a time or two. Their excuse for slow business was the public thought Branson was underwater.
Money talks, the truth takes a back seat.
Thge sales dept, sales manager, and GM make the money for the stations so they can and do determine what makes the air and how much play it gets. The news dept are just puppets. Gary & Tiffany never go live from an event that has anything to do with "news", they always are somewhere promoting something for their bosses down the hall in the sales dept.
I assure you that news making decisions in Springfield are a universe away from Joplin. Sales has virtually no bearing on any news decisions.
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