Allow me, today, to rant briefly, Andy Rooney-like, about one of my pet peeves. If you’ve read my blog very much, you’ve picked up on the fact that I live in Southern Oregon, just outside the small city of Medford. I enjoy living somewhere that offers the benefits of civilization (good medical care, shopping, eclectic restaurants, a lively cultural scene) as well as access to the outdoors and a wide range of local foodstuffs (and wine!). The Rogue Valley certainly fits the bill on all those counts. What needs improvement, though, are the local news broadcasts.

Those who travel or who’ve lived in a variety of places know that the quality of local news depends a lot on the size of the market. Obviously, the experienced talent (and the money to build a professional news-gathering team and produce a polished broadcast) will land in the big cities: New York, L.A., Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, etc. From there, it’s a descending scale, kind of like going from the NFL to college to high school to Pop Warner football.

When I lived in Twin Falls, Idaho, I experienced probably one of the smallest markets in the country, and we had one local station in town (but could draw on Boise and Salt Lake City, too). Growing up in Portland, we had three network-affiliated stations and an independent (long before cable came along) in a mid-sized market, and during all my years in Washington state I enjoyed the local broadcasts from the large Seattle market. Now I’m back in a comparatively small-market arena, although it covers a large geographic area (Sacramento to Eugene, and the Pacific coast east to Reno and Bend) and supports three network affiliates. Let me just say, the on-air talent pickin’s are slim, ESPECIALLY on the weekends.

I get that these folks need to get their training somewhere — most of them look like they are fresh out of journalism school — and reading the news live is harder than it looks, but sometimes I find myself addressing wardrobe advice and correct pronunciations of fairly common words to the T.V. screen (similar to the way my husband offers commentary when he’s watching a football game, though I don’t think I’m as loud — or profane!). Really, you can be forgiven for messing up some of the more unusual local geographic names if you’re a newcomer here (and most catch on fairly quickly), but common, ordinary words or well-known political figures’ names? I wonder if they practice those cheesy smiles in the mirror more than they do reading their copy!

The thing that makes me really squirm, though, is unscripted, “folksy” banter between news team members. I know, it’s not particularly enjoyable on any broadcast anywhere. It’s especially bad on slow news days when apparently they need to fill extra air time. Please, I don’t want to know what you’re doing on the weekend or what you think of the story about the surfing squirrel. I don’t want to see the weather gal flirt with the sports guy. It often goes on far too long and ventures into the ridiculous. And of course, on weekends when there often isn’t a lot of big news, the situation is compounded when you have the second-string reporters at the desk. They become visibly flustered and laugh nervously when they have to fill air space for more than 20 seconds; it’s just too painful to watch. Please, end the newscast with scenic  shots viewers have sent in over some nice music, scroll the sports scores or even tell us what’s on following the news, but don’t try to ad lib your way through a minute of small talk!!

There, I feel a little better. Maybe I’d just better avoid those weekend newscasts altogether from here on out!

– Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader