Challenging “Breaking” News, “Severe” Weather

via Lost Remote:

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on a recent local panel discussion about TV news, in which a member of the audience challenged the use of terms like “breaking” and “severe.” Check out these defensive responses:

WPXI news director Corrie Harding said the breaking news bug afflicts TV stations because research shows that’s what people want to see.

WTAE News Director Bob Longo: “The first three letters of news are new.”

A bit weak, to say the least. True, the news directors are executing strategies based on research, which seems to be telling them that viewers prefer live, local, late-breaking reporting, no matter how trivial the live, local event. I won’t challenge the research findings on the question of up-to-the-minute news, although I’d like to see what kinds of questions the research firms are asking. The problem is execution: viewers can tell the difference between the important and the trivial, and the more trivial live and local events a station chooses to cover with live trucks and helicopters – from one-car accidents on the freeway to cats trapped in trees – the greater the long-term damage to the level of attention that viewers are willing to pay to the station.

What we’re learning from Steve Gillmor and others is that attention is more important than just about anything else as media choices explode. There are a lot of local TV stations digging their own graves.