(NOTICE: NOT for J1 Credit)
In the month of October, the Journalism 1 class at Manual High School monitored five different local news stations in order to assess the data based off of various items pertaining to location and type of news. After many days of reading, watching, and recording, there came to be a certain pattern among an individual organization, WDRB, a local news station on the television and online. It was seen that WDRB has a large amount of celebrity, fluff, and other news on their television news station, as compared to WAVE, WLKY, and WHAS. Totalities revealed that the total number of "fluff" news stories on WDRB equaled to 21 stories in all, as compared to WHAS's smaller 8, WAVE's tiny 7, and WLKY's measly 2 (as of the 30th of October, 2014).
As always, celebrity, fluff, and other irrelevant stories on television news and online news websites are acceptable if shown and/or posted in moderation, as entertainment is sought in today's "lazy" society. However, WDRB's number is beyond the average, with as many as 4 fluff stories on an individual hourly news block (as seen by data released around 6:00 at night each time data was recorded). Stories as numerous as these cause distractions for the viewer, and show unprofessionalism in the organization. With so much fluff clogging the screens, one cannot simply view the news for intended purposes, sometimes resulting in the migration to another, more reliable news organization.
WDRB's fluff is in direct violation of the first basic yardstick of journalism, newsworthiness, according to gradethenews.org, and should not be seen as a correct or proper way to format a television news program. To fix this, WDRB should consider adding a little less fluff, but a little more real news on their 6:00 news block. If celebrity news is something that simply cannot be cut out of the daily news due to popularity concerns, then, at the very least, WDRB should post them on their online website, as more celebrity and fluff stories are sometimes acceptable considering that the viewers can share the stories on online social media websites, possibly leading to a multitude of more viewers later on.
Although a little fluff is sometimes essential to a news organization's popularity, too much is never a good thing. WDRB had a little too much in the month of October considering the multiple rape trials, Ebola cases, and political happenings, but, as always, there is room to change.
Check out the website (WDRB) here: http://www.wdrb.com
WHAS: http://www.whas11.com
WAVE: http://www.wave3.com
WLKY: http://www.wlky.com
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