Day 13

You can see I'm not staying with it, but I have a few notes:

1) Why does the weatherman always refer to Fond du Lac as "Fondy"? That's so annoying. Who else does that? I've never seen a rule of journalistic ethics against neologisms or vernacular, but it just seems to go along with the other problems. Sports guys deliver their entire report in a shout, peppered with cheering and dumb jokes. I have a very traditionalist preference (moreso than I can probably justify) for a direct, subdued demeanor that will give the facts respectfully and without embellishment. It's impossible to engage in silliness, banter, or shouting without conveying subtle commentary. If you're reporting on a major tragedy, you wouldn't be making up silly nicknames. So even by doing this, you're telling us what is and is not serious enough to force you to report soberly.

2) Two stories caught on tape: a five year old drives a truck, and some other nonsense. Not important, not local, just crap you happen to have video for. Oh, and a celebrity marriage. Because celebrity updates are news you can use.

3) Another carp about the weather report. I can always pretty much get the weather, but my roommate and other people are constantly telling me BS that they say they got from broadcast weather reports. It's almost always wrong. I can see why. The northern half of the state is under a frost advisory. I guess just to be cute, weatherguy says that it will be "frosty" in the viewing area for those not close to the lake. But not apparently cold enough for frost. So the confusion is: we're going to get frost, there's a warning, et cetera, when in fact it will not even be that cold, but the misleading exaggerated language, coupled with a report of conditions far away, leave a misimpression. Similarly, I think that all the wind chills and heat indexes are misleading because people confuse them for actual temperatures. I wish more would be done to idiotproof those reports,

4) There was a "4 your health" segment, that I did not even recognize as such until it was done. It was basically an ad for weight loss equipment. I'm not completely against stories that help make people aware of new products, but the sales information should be included because it answers a question that would have been posed with or without someone else's motive to sell merchandise. Otherwise, the journalist is ceding control to the marketer out of laziness.

5) A teaser about something that may be putting my child at risk. I don't like the presumptuous familiarity of assuming I have a child, and if I had one, I'd want to know right away what the risks are. I understand that if you give away all the spoilers, the report won't be much of a draw, but I don't believe in journalists holding back information for profit. Can you give us a hint? Is it the drinking water, the playground equipment, child molesters, sick building syndrome? Oh my god, it's sick building syndrome, isn't it? I knew it. I'm keeping Junior in a tent out back from now on.

By the way, I looked at the John Mercure blog. What vapid pabulum there. Short entries, mostly. A lot of promotion: you gotta see this story I'm doing tonight! Occasionally a dumb joke off the internet, or an opinion (completely conventional and thick-headed of course) about a story from somewhere else, the somewhere else being the new's station's sister newspaper. Sample opinions: They should put that drunk driver away for 50 years! That deadbeat sure is a loser for not paying child support! I guess the station expects him to have a blog even if he has nothing interesting to say. Actual decent blogging demands commitment (which I muster in little spurts from time to time, and John does not). I don't understand why the station pushes everyone to do a bad blog. Instead, why not have a few decent bloggers who work full time, and let the TV crew do their thing full time, and have them interact to help each other?