popular thinking

So I'm watching NBC's 7 News at 5 p.m. today and could not help but notice they devoted a significant amount of airtime to a robbery in south Florida. Why? Perhaps because the reporter said she was from 7 News and you saw the familiar logo on the 7 News microphone during the segment's interviews. But wait a second. You mean to tell me that a Boston TV station sent a reporter down to Florida for a bank robbery? No. You don't mean that. Because it's the top local story from FOX's 7 News in Miami. Same circle 7 logo because they're owned by the same company, Sunbeam Television. I suppose it makes sense to combine your company's news forces, even if one is an NBC affiliate and one is a FOX affiliate, to make it seem as though you're on top of the story. It certainly gave Boston's Ch. 7 an intangible advantage during the Anna Nicole post-mortem saga. But for a local robbery in Miami? It just gives the appearance of time-filler.

Then again, is this any worse than the longstanding practice among local TV news teams across the nation of slapping their own voiceovers on another station's enterprise report?

Actually, that's a worse offense in my book.

But still. The whole Boston-Miami dual Ch. 7 connection just seemed odder than usual to me today. I wonder, though, if Miami's Ch. 7 News has the same mandate to go with alliteration on every single news story.

Labels: media, TV