Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Absurd behavior of local TV stations

Don’t read the Reading Eagle to learn about important local stuff? Do you instead get your local news from WFMZ, the television station?

Here is a clear, brief and funny article about how silly so much TV news is. As Jeff Jarvis describes it, you wonder how professionals could seriously behave like this.

The Eagle has had two good stories this week. One focused on the need for bilingual police officers in Reading

I think the reporter could have given Chief Heim a little more space to explain how hard is it to attract qualified minority employees to a podunk like Reading, a problem the newsroom has grappled with.

The other explained how the bad weather has diminished the supply of blood.

It’s funny, though, that the Eagle included the website addresses for the Red Cross -- giveapint.org and redcrossblood.org – but didn’t insert the links. What, are we supposed to cut and paste them? Including obvious links in your text is Web Management 101, and the omission suggests the Eagle leaders would be happy if this whole Internet thing just stopped.

Mike Urban is a really smart, hardworking, insightful reporter and a very strong, clear writer. I wish he wrote about more substantive matters.

I hope the reporters – who are out on the streets developing contacts and sources – choose their own stories. It would be sad if all the stories were simply assigned by editors who think they know what needs covering.

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