Liberals hate “Fox News,” especially in reference to the national cable news programing and the commentaries of the likes of Sean Hannity, Bill O’Rielly, etc. It seems Fox News sometimes challenges their world view. Personally we think Fox News (national cable) is overrated as to consistency but we can hold that commentary for another time.
But we have thought of late that when it comes to local news, any disdain liberals might harbor for the local namesake, based on prejudice, is misplaced. From what we have heard the presentations of local Fox affiliate KLJB are more and more indistinguishable from others in this market in their “spin” on stories of various sort . We define “spin” in short as deciding what is news and the analysis or assumptions made in the presentation.
And so with that background, as we were perusing the KWQC website for information on an unrelated matter we stumbled upon this little gem: Station KWQC will produce the KLJB 9 O’clock News. In our humble naive way we were astounded to learn that formal “cross fertilization” goes on in spite of the reputation for intense competitiveness in broadcast journalism. We were further astounded to learn that previous to this, KLJB had a relationship with WQAD TV.
A spokesman for KLJB in the story is quoted as saying “We are confident that FOX 18 will continue to provide our viewers and advertisers the distinctive news programming they have come to know and expect.” Count us as unconvinced. Even sharing the same cameraman and footage in itself is an undeniable “view” sharing, that limits coverage of events. One camera cannot cover all the facets of an event in the time frame of the event. It invites phoning in of stories as in absentee, armchair, no longer original, reporting.
Note: Veritas has previously made mention of joint distribution arrangements and cooperation on stories between the areas newspapers — QC Times and the Argus Dispatch. References to that incestuousness are available here and here.
RM
