Since the beginning of radio, stations have been parasites living off the news of their local newspapers, who are direct competitors for local advertising money (except when the newspaper owns the radio station, which is permitted in small markets)
But once the local newspaper vanishes, what do you do for news? The Facebook pages of many of the stations are damn depressing – not having resources or wanting the responsibility for what they write, the “news” is typically dominated by death announcements and what they get by calling the police department each morning – car crashes, people arrested, crimes and the occasional house fire.
Surely there things going on in the community adding to the entropy of the community – couples getting married and having children, businesses opening, churches having revival services, the city repaving streets. If it happens to be the interest of the station owner, maybe they cover local sports.
Maybe after calling Betty down at the sheriff’s office every morning for 30 years and thinking that is News, it is time to pass on the station to the next generation before the station winds up on the obituary page.
News is morphing into propaganda and lies. It’s more important to generate retweets and shares than it is to be accurate in most cases. A sad day. I like my radio.
The Clear Channel / iHeartRadio web news is getting really obnoxious and offensive lately. The local station web sites carry a news feed that is national. Much of the content is anti-Trump but subtle. A story earlier today was accusing the viewer of breaking the law by idling their car.
Amazing. Pervasive hate. It is hard to believe that this time in life has been so polluted with impolite, un-American and generally useless people in the media and elsewhere.
which way is this thread going? Top down, or from bottom up ?
parrott
You make an interesting point. The comments to the post are newest at the top, but the replies to the first level comments are in oldest first. Would you like it back the way it was?
I vote yes for the way it was. Canvass the group here and see what everyone else thinks, of course.
best
Parrott
The motivation was the sticky open threads were getting way too long. Most of the regulars have caught on to watching the right side to spot the new comments to find new stuff.
I’m thinking maybe the solution is to break apart the open threads by month – i.e. Donald Trump December 2016, then start a new one for January 2017, but I’m open for other ideas.