this is a sticks of fire news bulletin — sensationalism will drive you mad
JohnJust a brief question for the SOF faithful out there: is coverage by a certain TV news organizations driving you as mad as it is for me? Has Bay News 9’s ticker alerts been overused to the point it’s lost effectiveness?
It used to be breaking news coverage from local broadcast stations would be for truly severe weather that was a threat to Tampa Bay… Bay News 9, however, seems have their ticker pop up on the bottom of their broadcasts every time there is even the hint of rain in the area. You may think of them as an added function to get through the news faster (like that of the national 24 hour news stations), but for those like me — it’s just a distraction from the broadcast itself.
Tags: media, tampa, tv, weather
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June 12th, 2006 at 5:26 am
I remember when BN9 started and the joke was they found that Tampa had too little news to fill a 24 hour station. Other than weather and traffic int he morning I still tend to agree.
ABC has the idea though, they did not interrupt world cup play for an Alberto update, instead a simple line a white text, sans beeping sound, scrolling along the bottom of the sreen told me the storms location and likely destination without interrupting the game. Not that I listen too much the any weatherman predictions of landfall for any of these storms. If the last two years has proved anything it its that weather prediction is still a “best guess” excercise.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:49 am
My main problem with how BN9 handles things is that it calls everything “Breaking News.” I mean, you get some traffic slowdowns on I-275, and they send out a “breaking news” alert.
A breaking news story is if we suddenly go to war, or there is a major fire downtown, or Elizabeth Taylor/Larry King remarries. These alerts can be helpful, but they need a different name than “breaking news.” Maybe something simple like a “Bay News 9 Alert.”
I mean, they sent out a breaking news alert when Al Rouchelle stopped dying his hair.
June 12th, 2006 at 9:50 am
BN9 underline is very useful when you first turn on the TV and want to know what’s happening right that minute (for those of us who don’t have time to watch TV all day). An Alberto update should be considered breaking news. House fires? Maybe not.
June 12th, 2006 at 11:46 am
BN9 sucks rocks. Plan and simple. It’s just horrible. BN9 sucks, Al Ruechel sucks, that sports guy with that crappy late night show sucks, the repetition sucks, their graphic design sucks.
Sucks sucks suckity suck sucks.
I need some coffee apparently.
June 12th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
Yeah buddy, we’ll be giving YOUR silly theater troup some positive publicity soon enough!
June 12th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
Breaking news alert: Bay News 9 responds!
June 12th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
will it be breaking news?
June 12th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
David you’re waking up just before lunch? I want your job dude! (Community theater folk and jazz musicians have it so good.)
June 12th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
I think part of the problem (or rather, an explanation) is that they try to tie in their Breaking News paging service in with their broadcasts. I’m with them on this: If you’re going to page out news to my little cell phone window, which typically omits details, there’d better be something back at the actual TV when I tune in to find them. So, it may be part of broader news delivery “system” they are pioneering. The usual TV broadcast is one layer of that but then so is the paging network they’ve successfully built. The key question is still what constitutes breaking news or not, that’s certainly true. They should tier the grade of incidents and probably will in the next few years. I’m like the other poster, I only want to know when the president has been shot - not when the winning score in someone’s idea of an important basketball game has. I *hate* sports news sent out as breaking news.
Dave
June 12th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
“Breaking news alert: Bay News 9 responds!
Comment by M”
dammit!!! M beat me to it.
June 12th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
is bay news 9 on some kind of tape loop? am, pm, theres that same al dude on there, looking all bright eyed and bushy tailed. if news were muzak, it would look and sound like bay snooze nein.
June 12th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
I think that Bay News 9 is valuable, however, the breaking news crawlers are annoying and not always “breaking news.” I think the weather people on all stations are trying for their own emmy or something with all the dramatics and hysteria
June 13th, 2006 at 10:28 am
I think Bay News 9 really tries hard … but I think they tried too hard.
Yeah, there are tape loops and such, but there really isn’t any sense paying someone a lot of money to just sit there and read the same thing over and over again. However, they do have people on standby for actual breaking news, and that makes sense.
I find all the television news, to be honest, self-serving. I mean, I was watching an afternoon TV show that I had DVRed late last night, and the whole damn time, there was this big bulky square box on the side of the screen (going halfway up, blocking quite a bit of what I was trying to watch) that just said “Alberto” and had some type of Doppler map that just kept recycling the same motion over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
What was the purpose of that? Why not show it once in a while, with some actual text to go with it, otherwise, refer people to the Web site to see the most recent Doppler radar scan? I mean, what is the purpose taking up 10 percent of the screen with some big bulky Doppler radar map? What service does that serve.
“Oh, look, honey! Those clouds moved 1 mile over their previous position! Wow! I’m glad that we saw it 7,000 times, because I was afraid I was going to miss such a spectacular event!”
June 13th, 2006 at 10:40 am
Bay News 9 - it’s not like you were covering the arts before, unless it involved a street fair and funnel cake, so I don’t think we’re going to lose any press.
C.W. - I was actually making a joke about needing coffee (just the opposite was true actually), I’m up well before noon. And for the record, I don’t work in community theater.
June 13th, 2006 at 11:08 am
BN9 really freaked me out this morning when I was getting ready for work. The breaking news alerts scrolling at the bottom said that Bayshore Blvd. was closed and a barge hit the Howard Frankland. It sounded like half of Tampa was shut down because of the weather.
As it turns out, only part of Bayshore was closed and only some lanes of the Howard Frankland were temporarily closed. It wasn’t Armageddon after all.
June 13th, 2006 at 11:11 am
every local wanker tv channel is guilty of hyping this non-storm. they are having the opposite effct of what they want, i.e., they are causing people to tune out, ignore. so when the real storm comes, we will get smacked bec people no longer trust tv. ever since they had their big chance w charlie two years ago, the tv guys have gone over the top. time for them to go back to the drawing board on how they handle storms…
June 13th, 2006 at 11:56 am
This is just my opinion, but I have to admit, I really, really, really hate the wall-to-wall coverage that happens if a storm is beginning to think about maybe stopping by.
I remember for Charley .. every channel was Charley, Charley, Charley. I mean, they were doing nothing but tracking every inch of movement that the storm was making, rebroadcasting different segments over and over again, and really not doing anything more than boring me to tears.
I would’ve preferred that they simply allow regular program to run, break in every 15 minutes or so with an update, but then allow us to continue watching. I mean, they consider it a “duty” to do wall-to-wall, but who is it actually serving? I mean, you’re dumping commercials, you’re dumping regular programming. Not everyone wants to sit and watch the grass grow, and they certainly don’t want to watch a storm inch along. I mean, give us updates, and we’ll go from there.
I feel bad for slamming BN9, to be honest. I mean, they do work hard, even if they struggle to find real news, and to properly put it together. I guess I just feel that a lot of the news that gets broadcast on BN9 or ANY TV station for that matter, is mostly just garbage. I mean, they have some interesting things, but you know when it’s sweeps, and you know when no one is watching.
I think the music and graphics for BN9 need to be changed. Big time. I mean, at the very least, we need an udpate. The bureaus are simply retarded. I mean, we get these “bureau reports” and they really contain nothing. It’s like they are simply trying to justify their existence, rather than having them available for actual real news. I mean, wouldn’t it be cheaper to simply by a chopper like the other stations and simply get to different areas where there is breaking news? Wouldn’t that be cheaper than maintaining bureaus?
I like how BN9 promotes the Web site and such, although I’m glad they finally don’t feel the need to walk us through every single damn step to get there. To me, if you have to explain to someone how to get somewhere on a Web site, then you have too much stuff there and it’s time to simplify.
And just like the previous poster, I have to agree that they — along with the other TV stations — tend to make a Mount Everest out of an ant hill.
I go back to my original comment that ties into this post that BN9 claims to have all this breaking news, but the question becomes, was it really breaking news to begin with? Why not just assign news different categories and go from there. Give me traffic alerts, weather alerts, interesting story alerts, and then give me real breaking news. Like a multiple shooting at a hotel, or a major fire that burns down Ybor City. THAT is breaking news.
In the last three weeks, I received seven breaking news alerts from Bay News 9. Here is what they were:
* Child pornography bust in Tampa — Interesting, but not really breaking news.
* Overturned tanker leaking diesel in Hillsborough Co. — I think this has a little bit of an argument for Breaking News, but a bit sketchy
* I-75 south in south Hillsborough down to 1 lane due to brushfire — A traffic alert, maybe, but definitely not breaking news
* Senate rejects amendment on gay marriage ban — Not local, but definitely interesting. A good breaking news alert
* FDA approves cervical cancer vaccine — Once again, not local, but still interesting, and still a good breaking news alert.
* Christopher Lunz gets life in prison for arranging father’s murder — I guess this works, although it’s probably my fault that I have no idea who Christopher Lunz is.
* Bay area now under Tropical storm warning — Definitely a breaking news story
So, a few were there, a few weren’t. Not that the alerts weren’t informative or interesting … I just think they need to be categorized differently.
It’s just like cussing. If you cuss all the time, people will get used to you saying it, and practically tune it out. But if you rarely ever cuss, and suddenly let out the f-bomb, you’ll get some attention. The same with taking aspirin. The same with breaking news.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
David J: I confess it was me who signed that previous note “Bay News 9.” It was only intended as a joke, besides the real BN9 will be irked enough once they see M’s treatises here.
I only referenced Jobsite Theater because of your URL. That was another attempt at humor. They don’t all work.
Speaking of work, or a lack thereof, M seems to have a LOT of time on his hands!
June 13th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Nah … I just type fast.
June 13th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
C.W. - Perhaps I’m the one not making my humor plain enough, I fully recognized that BN9 wasn’t posting here. It was funny, I was trying to be funny back. See, even professionals don’t manage to knock ‘em dead every time.
I also get why you referenced the company. Fair enough. I was merely trying to point out that we’re not a community theater. I’m pretty loathe towards most labels liek that, but I do recognize the line between professional and community theater - and that’s all I was trying to clarify.