With the decline of newspapers, Perry Sook, CEO of Nexstar Broadcasting, which owns KSN and operates KODE in the Joplin market, says his television stations are becoming the "newspaper of record."
Locally, I am not sure it has reached that point, though in the 37 years since I took my first newspaper job in this area, I cannot recall any time when so many stories that appear in the Joplin Globe originally were on television, KZRG radio, or even this blog.
The Globe has reached a point where fluffy features have replaced solid beat journalism. Often the Globe run stories days, if not weeks, after they appeared elsewhere.
The television stations, KODE and KSN, and even more often, KOAM have been providing more and more news, in some cases, even investigative reporting and it is not always confined to sweeps months.
Readers, what do you think? Are TV stations becoming the new "newspaper of record?"
In an emergency you can't wipe with the tv news!
ReplyDeleteKOAM does a good job of being our "newspaper of record". From what I've seen, KOAM at least attempts to cover some news of local importance and even some investigative stories. KODE/KSN are just a step behind the Globe. These stations cover little news, mostly fluff with a heavy concentration on the weather. They also take a lot of time running film of potholes, mailboxes, parked cars and building entrances as story fillers. We used to laugh about how the Globe would run stories a day or two later (now it's more like a week or two) from the KC Star. The Globe is incredibly biased in the small amount of reporting it does. The same uninformed local op-ed writers appear again and again. The same columnist continues to write about how many times he goes on vacation, how much time his family spends shopping, how big their house is etc. It's become a tired rag and they expect people to continue to pay more for it. I wish we had a strong local newspaper, but I'm afraid that era is gone.
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