(NOTICE: NOT for J1 Credit)
A recent calculation in Journalism I class at Manual High School revealed a new folly of WHAS11 News. On the 29th of October, during the 6 o' clock news block, WHAS's main lead story on their television broadcast channel was "UofL and SFU traffic problems," a local story that mainly included an overview of the traffic jam occurring downtown due to four major local events taking place, one being the Louisville vs. South Florida football game mentioned in the title. As a part of traffic and/or simple weather information usually shown before a cut to commercial break, it is surpassable and sometimes necessary. However, as a main story that goes on for over three minutes, it is a violation of the first basic yardstick of journalism, newsworthiness, as stated by gradethenews.org. As stated, it is considered a peripheral topic, and completely irrelevant, especially since other studied news channels/papers bore much more important recent topics taking place locally.
For example, WLKY's lead television story bore the title "murder investigation of Garland Avenue [Louisville]." It included multiple interviews of the victim, Terron Johnson's, family, justification for the rapid search, police estimations and ideas, and footage reels of the crime scene, as well as the neighborhood praying for peace through the act of singing and yelling to what is believed to be a Christian god. A vigil is described and briefly shown, as well.
On the same day, WDRB's lead story title conveyed the recent open fire police incident (local). "Police open fire-kill man after car crash" was a story that clearly described the incident, as told by multiple confirmed sources.
To conclude, not only did this story violate the yardstick of newsworthiness, but it also violated the seventh principle, make the important interesting, as said by PEJ, journalism.org. WDRB made an interesting topic many local Louisville citizens find interesting (the UofL football game), asked a few people if they would be attending it, and played a short film reel of the opposing team practicing, all in an attempt to make it important, when, in reality, it did not have a lasting impact, and did not inform the public of some form of danger that was worthy of a lead news story.
WDRB should have reported on other, more interesting topics, as there were others to choose from. If they really felt that the possible downtown traffic that might have been occurring the next day was relevant, then they should have fit it in before a commercial break, or later in the news block as a smaller, less significant part of the "newsworthy" news. Traffic reports are like weather-they are significant, but not, to journalism students, newsworthy. Yet, that does not mean that they should not be a part of the news. They should merely be a part of it, not the bulk of it (unless, of course, some major storm hits the locals of the town and affects or is about to affect them in some way majorly), or even the lead. Nice try, WHAS. Nice try.
See the WHAS video story here: http://www.whas11.com/media/cinematic/video/15991494/uofl-fsu-traffic-problems/
See the WLKY video and news story here: http://www.wlky.com/news/outraged-community-demands-justice-after-garland-ave-murder/29421434
*Unfortunately, the WDRB story could not be found online. Credit goes to Eric Vazquez and his sources from the WDRB group in DMHS's Journalism I class for verifying the newsworthiness of this story.*
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