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In Defense of WDRB

In Defense of WDRB

Local news is inherently flawed. Local news is often incapable of living up to national expectations on a low budget and local audience. Evie published a post that had some harsh words for WDRB today. In it, she berates the local news station for airing too many stories about social issues or human interest, and for publishing too many sports stories online. The way she sees it, WDRB sacrifices being able to do in depth coverage on specific stories in exchange for more time for populist stories. While I agree with her in some points, I fundamentally disagree with her opinions on what constitutes a relevant and important story. 

Evie states that on a recent broadcast "there were nine stories that fit under the category of social issues and human interests, but their were zero stories on politics and government, and only one story on accidents and disasters" to support her point that WDRB is airing too many irrelevant stories. While I do see it as slightly problematic that they had no political stories on either the broadcast or website, especially coming up on the midterms, the numbers Evie presents aren't necessarily demonstrating that WDRB airs irrelevant stories. Stories about social issues are often informative, engaging, and necessary. It would be idealized to say they are always good journalism, stories about important issues concerning the local population would show up under this fairly broad category. Human interest can mean a variety of things, but it is a completely separate category from those most pointless stories under sports, crime and celebrity and fluff. Only having one story about accidents and disasters is a positive. Too many news sources have unimportant stories about a baby drowning or one grisly car crash half the world away, those would both probably be accidents. If a news organization only had one disaster story after the 2010 earthquake that killed hundred of thousands in Haiti and displaced millions, that would be a problem. But one accident or disaster story at this point in time is plenty adequate. 

Evie also has legitimate complaints about the number of sports stories. The three minute segment with eight business or economy stories crammed in is also unfortunate. I haven't seen anything of the type from the four airings I've watched, but I would believe it. Local stations and all news organizations at large must balance the wants and needs of the public, though. I have seen some quality stories on WDRB, if sports coverage is the way they finance that then I see it as a good trade off. If a local news organization were to have strictly elitist stories, it would quickly become like KET or C-SPAN and go out of business. There are some legitimate complaints to be hedged against WDRB, but I think some of Evie's criticisms envision a world more utopian than it currently is. It isn't perfect, but from my experience I think WDRB is the best local news station we've got. It isn't like the others where I feel like I am watching The Crime Times. News organizations must balance profit and in-depth coverage and I think WDRB's model, imperfect as it is, is the best Kentuckiana has got. 

Evie's post:
http://eviereedjournalism1.blogspot.com/2018/10/does-wdrb-focus-on-audience-too-much.html?m=1 

Comments

  1. EvieNovember 1, 2018 at 2:20 PM

    Thank you for your feedback Satchel! Your post brought up a new perspective that I had never thought about before. I am sorry if I sounded harsh in my blog post, I didn't mean for it to come out that way. I will make sure that I improve on my mistakes. You are an amazing writer and journalist, keep up the good work!

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