| Station: WCCO Date: | |||
| Time | Type of content | Type of stories | |
| 5 min, 13 sec. | News—local | Crime stories: attempted sexual assaults, a stabbing in an office building, a possible kidnapping, follow-up to attempted bank robbery Labor news: Nurses’ strike and video clip of confrontation between nurses and hospital employees Health/Wellness story: more people affected by e. coli-infected milk from MN farm Human interest: Pool safety classes founded by members of family of girl who died in pool accident Public concern: Pack of coyotes spotted in | |
| 4 min, 08 sec. | News—national | Environmental: Gulf of Mexico-BP oil spill Global-local connection: Three MN hikers being held in Natural disaster: Flash floods in AK Human interest: Teenage sailor found and being returned home Editorial on parents of teenage sailor allowing her to sail around the world on her own | |
| 6 min, 02 sec | Sports | International: World Cop National: U of NE joins Big 10—2 separate stories Local: Recap of tonight’s Twins game, Vikings mini-camp—A.P. a no-show, Childress upset High school: current state tournaments—softball, track, lacrosse | |
| 2 min, 06 sec | Entertainment/education | Nightly segment called “Good Question” with Jason DeRusha | |
| 3 min, 31 sec | Weather | Full forecast and recap @ end of news | |
Reflection:
I will admit it: I do not normally watch the news. That probably makes me a poor citizen, but the news is usually so depressing and not as informative as I’d like it to be, so I just skip it. I scan the newspaper at lunch every day for my daily take and occasionally click on stories online that interest me. Therefore, it was interesting for me to sit down and actually watch the news, top to bottom tonight.
The first thing I noticed was that WCCO follows the shock news pattern for its ordering of stories. The first three stories tonight all concerned crimes, with the most recent and dramatic story starting the broadcast. I will give the station credit for not sensationalizing the story of the attempted sexual assaults. The story was informative and to-the-point and clearly did not want to scare people more than necessary, but it would have been good for them to include some safety tips for women as part of the story. The next biggest local news story (based on the amount of time allotted) was the story on the nurses’ strike. This is obviously a big story due to the number of people affected by the strike and the contract negotiations. I felt like the story positioned me to respond favorably to the nurses because they talked about how some nurses weren’t allowed to return to work today and how that was in violation of their contract. The story claims the hospitals are saying there’s no specific clause describing procedure for nurses returning from strike, which makes the hospitals sound a little sketchy and retaliatory.
The biggest national story is, not surprisingly, the oil spill in the Gulf. Given our nation’s renewed interest in the environment plus the recent focus on that region due to Hurricane Katrina, it’s no wonder that this story garners a lot of attention. The popular opinion definitely seems to be that BP is totally responsible for this mess, and the story reinforces that opinion. It also contains some shock value, as it reports that scientists are now claiming that more oil leaked out then was originally thought. Now that the spill has been mostly contained, the news media need to keep up the interest in the story, and reporting new findings like this keeps the story fresh and engaging.
Sports definitely got the most coverage, with the most time devoted to local sporting news, like the Twins victory over the Braves, Adrien Peterson skipping the Vikings’ mini-camp today, and the on-going state high school tournaments. The reporters did a nice job covering the Adrien Peterson story because they shared both Brad Childress’s frustration and a teammate’s support for Peterson’s decision. It’s not ground-breaking news, but Minnesotans expect a pretty high level of responsibility and work ethic from our sports figures, so this story would be of interest to many MN sports fans.
We Minnesotans love to discuss the weather, mostly because we get so much of it, which explains why the weather was allotted 3 ½ minutes in the broadcast. I also enjoyed the entertainment-driven nightly feature called “Good Question” with Jason DeRusha. Viewers email or text in questions of any variety and DeRusha investigates to find the answers. Tonight’s questions related to the rainy weather we’ve been experiencing lately, the nurses’ strike, how streets are named, and why police officers are allowed to be on computers while they’re driving when regular citizens aren’t allowed to text. I think this segment is designed to make viewers feel like they’re a part of the show and be entertaining and educational at the same time. In a small way, it encourages curiosity and investigation, which is always good.
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