All the Facts

All the Facts

On the 6 o'clock news on Monday WDRB aired a story that was not well researched or well reported. There are plenty of stories like that that are aired, but this was the lead story on the 6 P.M. broadcast. All the details on the story viewers were given was that there was an incident that might have involved gunshots in an apartment complex and that the police had showed up. The reporter added that no ambulance had shown up at the time it was reported. 

Not only is this a meaningless, fear-mongering story, but WDRB made it the lead story of the broadcast. They thought that a possible incident that may or may not have involved gunshots was the most important thing for Louisvillians to know. They didn't wait to air the story until they had more details than "something happened!". They aired this hollow nothingness and tried to make it have the semblance of a news story. They said they would come back to the story if they got any more details, but why air it with no details on the first place? 

This story quite clearly should have violated many of the yardsticks of journalism, but it is so empty that it is hard to pin down. Can't say anything that violates the yardsticks of journalism if you don't actually say anything! You could say this story did blatantly disregard fairness because it got no sides of the story. The story was completely un-newsworthy as there was no details. The fact that there was a disturbance of the peace certainly does not affect a lot of people for a long time. There were no discernable sources as the reporters literally didn't know what was happening. Watching this "story" was not a good use of anyone's time. 

Explaining why thus story shouldn't have been aired when it was takes no great manifesto. It is pretty self explanatory that a story shouldn't be published or aired until there are enough confirmed details that some story can be made. The Onion once published a story much like the one aired first on WDRB's 6 P.M. broadcast on the 15th. Come on, is it too much to ask for our local news organizations to have higher journalistic standards than The Onion? The Onion mocks the worst of the news organizations of the 21st century and satirizes what they have become. Based on watching WDRB, it seems their parodies are all too accurate.