Do you watch the local television news? Me neither, as we say in Southern Indiana. It is nothing but sound-bytes, all of which could be absorbed during a 2-minute glance at the internet. Analysis in The Indianapolis Star may seem thin, but it’s like The Economist compared to local tv news.

The superficiality is not the worst of it, though. Television news panders to the worst in us. It focuses on stories that have an emotional hook, not on things we need to know. Is it any wonder people are afraid of shark attacks or air plane crashes—where the odds are millions to one—but are insufficiently concerned about real risks to their safety?

This point was driven home to me Tuesday as I drove down Washington Street to have lunch with my daughter in downtown Columbus. The corner around 8th Street was swarming with television crews and their enormous trucks. They weren’t here to report news, but to peer in on the funeral of Chelsea Porter, the 14 year old girl who was stabbed to death in our town a week earlier.

I acknowledge that Ms. Porter’s tragic death was news . But by the time of the funeral, the killer had been caught, he was identified as someone well-known to the adult who lived at the apartment where the crime took place, and he had already led police to the knife he used and then discarded under a bush. His motive was established (he was “stealing” the adult’s car keys as he did routinely and was caught in the act by the 14 year-old). What was left to say? Could the public help in any way?

The answer, of course, is that there was nothing to say and no further public help was needed except perhaps from neighbors or those closest to the murderer and victim. The crews weren’t here to report news, though, but to give their viewers a little voyeuristic thrill. This was titillation of the worst sort, aimed at people who think every story is about them, people who think their lottery number is sure to come up this week.

If you read my blogs, you know I’m not urging censorship. The local network affiliates can show what they want. And I know that tv news stations are grasping for the “gut” angle because they’re on a long, downward spiral anyway. I’m just saying tv news deserves what it gets.

Not to sound too much like Albert Brooks’s character in “Broadcast News”, but it’s almost all entertainment instead of information and it’s virtually all crap. “Nancy Grace” makes my skin crawl, not because of her hard-hitting style, but because it’s really about peeking in the window at other people’s misfortunes. Local tv news is no better, it’s just less well done.

Wow, as I read back over this I realize I’m becoming a complainer and whiner. Which reminds me, you should really, really get Sheila’s new book, God and Country: America in Red and Blue, and read it. Sheila rarely wastes her time on academic trivia. This is all about the big picture and I promise you’ll be interested.

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