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How Social Media Is Impacting Today's Local News


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Jerry Barmash of 'Tuned In' wrote this article earlier today about how the use of social media on local news is 'detrimental to the journalistic profession'.

 

Here's the link to the article: http://tunedinnyc.com/2014/04/28/use-of-social-media-on-local-news-detrimental-to-the-journalistic-profession/

 

The article talks about how stations in NYC have 'dumbed down' their broadcasts for ratings. I have to say I agree with every single thing he says in this article. In my honest opinion, social media has changed our world drastically, more for bad than good. However, some might disagree and feel that the use of social media has enabled news to spread faster, and people may get a closer relationship to their anchors by viewing their twitter/facebook accounts. In your opinion, has the use of social media in local news helped or harmed our world? Why?

 

(NOTE: I know lots of markets have this problem of stations 'dumbing down' their broadcasts to get ratings, not just NY. So, moderators, if you feel this should go in the 'It came from the D-Block' board or 'social media' board, feel free to move it.)

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I agree and disagree. As a 20 year old college student studying communications and journalism I love the interaction between anchors and viewers. It gives a personal feel that you don't see on the air. However I do think anchors and reporters should have both a professional page and private page. It avoids problems for everyone. Have the professional page.. Tease stories.. Post behind the scenes pics.. Event pics. Then you're private page for what you want to post. As for the "dumbing down" of newscasts I also agree there. While I would love to go into a station as an anchor in New York or anywhere for that matter it probably won't happen right away. I like Andrea Grymes using her since she was mentioned but she is very young and may not be the one to turn to for breaking news. You gotta remember tho many of the anchors now were younger when they started too (yes she may be younger than most) but were at a time now where many of the anchors and talent we know that have been around for a while are ready to leave and a new generation is coming in. It's a changing business and that's the way it's going to be.

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I agree and disagree. As a 20 year old college student studying communications and journalism I love the interaction between anchors and viewers. It gives a personal feel that you don't see on the air. However I do think anchors and reporters should have both a professional page and private page. It avoids problems for everyone. Have the professional page.. Tease stories.. Post behind the scenes pics.. Event pics. Then you're private page for what you want to post. As for the "dumbing down" of newscasts I also agree there. While I would love to go into a station as an anchor in New York or anywhere for that matter it probably won't happen right away. I like Andrea Grymes using her since she was mentioned but she is very young and may not be the one to turn to for breaking news. You gotta remember tho many of the anchors now were younger when they started too (yes she may be younger than most) but were at a time now where many of the anchors and talent we know that have been around for a while are ready to leave and a new generation is coming in. It's a changing business and that's the way it's going to be.

You will not start on air in New York, forgettabout it....
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You've probably never met him and you are saying this... classy.

Not personal, it's just the kind of thing where he better be a prodigy or it'll be a long trip up to market #1, let's face facts here, there are nearly 200 markets, think of all the air talent in the US, now think of how small a percent is in New York and then evaluate the odds he starts there. They aren't that good with so much talent with experience, and they want much of it in New York. He had better have either a good agent or an irresistible skill to make it there off the bat, it just doesn't happen.
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I wanna put this out there.

This is the 21st century. There's no way anyone can escape mentioning social media in a newscast, even if they tried. Just like mentioning the station's website a decade and a half ago. News evolved even back then, and it's evolving today, so why criticize now? Just doesn't make sense.

 

Also, I thought the guy who wrote the article made a bad case about reporters using pictures of themselves in casual clothing (namely bikinis). I get his point in a way. And I'm not saying all of them don't have to dress casually for them. But I'm just saying they also shouldn't be forced to use a picture of themselves dressed formally as their Twitter profile pictures. They control their own pages. They all have lives outside the newsroom, and they can't be serious all the time. Just ask Chuck Todd. He doesn't use a pic of himself at all; He uses the old NBC Peacock logo as his pro-pic. There's tweets to viewers, on reports, viewers sending eyewitness reports straight from the scene, ect.

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With the rise of the internet, more people are getting their hard news online. People more and more want to and are getting a relationship with the anchors. It's mentioned all the time, this station is getting softer or this station has hard news, etc... It's becoming less common to have hard news on the air because if there is a plane crash (God forbid), I'm gonna go on my phone to get updates. I'm gonna tune in on TV because there is an interesting report I want to hear.

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I for one am growing really tired, at least in the Philly market, of stations talking about their Breaking News apps for smartphones literally 7 times in an hour long newscast. Every time there is a big story, WPVI goes into a minute-long spiel about their apps and how it broke the story, etc. blah blah. We get that they exist, so stop telling us!

 

I will also say that this winter it became the "thing" to do to tweet snow pictures or various other things with a hashtag and then have them shown on the air. In some ways, it makes sharing news easier, but I think it really cheapens the news cast when you advertise things like hashtags and Twitter handles on L3's.

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OK - I'm old-school, and I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in what any of the viewers think about any story. The only useful feature is the immediate posting of NEWSWORTHY photos - and I don't mean somebody's dog kissing his cat!! I tune in to see the news from professional journalists, and "joe in newark's" opinion is meaningless to me. Fox5 is particulary bad, requesting inane comments on non-issues so that they can wrap up the news with them.

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The thing that bothers me the most, and it's been around even longer than social media, is when the stations have a link they can give me on the air, but instead of telling me to go to that website, they want me to go to their website to get the link to help drive traffic there. That annoys the sh*t out of me to no end. Even if it's something, as simple as saying to go to healthcare.gov. No, they say, "we have the link to the health insurance marketplace on our website, station.com"). I refuse to go to your website just to get a link I can get on google.

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The thing that bothers me the most, and it's been around even longer than social media, is when the stations have a link they can give me on the air, but instead of telling me to go to that website, they want me to go to their website to get the link to help drive traffic there. That annoys the sh*t out of me to no end. Even if it's something, as simple as saying to go to healthcare.gov. No, they say, "we have the link to the health insurance marketplace on our website, station.com"). I refuse to go to your website just to get a link I can get on google.

The thing is that promoting your website that way makes perfect sense. If you have the opportunity to drive traffic to your website why wouldn't you? It's a commercial website after all, no charity here.
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The thing that bothers me the most, and it's been around even longer than social media, is when the stations have a link they can give me on the air, but instead of telling me to go to that website, they want me to go to their website to get the link to help drive traffic there. That annoys the sh*t out of me to no end. Even if it's something, as simple as saying to go to healthcare.gov. No, they say, "we have the link to the health insurance marketplace on our website, station.com"). I refuse to go to your website just to get a link I can get on google.

 

I actually don't have a problem with this. Many pages aren't just a nice .com... there might be a bunch of subdirectories and it's just awkward to say that on-air for people who won't remember it anyway. It's nice to promote the station's website as a destination for more information on anything seen on-air.

 

What I don't like is when a station tells viewers to go to their website to find out if their flight is delayed. No, I'd rather go to my airline's site for that.

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What I don't like is when a station tells viewers to go to their website to find out if their flight is delayed. No, I'd rather go to my airline's site for that.

Well, I don't like it either, but stations do that so they can get their hits. That's why you hear "we have a link to their website on our website at _______" all the time. It won't stop certain folks for going to the station's site to find a link to that other site.
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