Do most stations do a good job of covering more than just the routine stories like fires, accidents, and crime, or is this an area where they need to improve?"

Just over 25% of all viewers complain about this issue, and most of them (15%) feel strongly about it (particularly 18-34s).







What Viewers Really Say about Range of Coverage

These viewers are tired of the steady diet of "spot" news. They feel a newscast limited to car wrecks, crime, conflict, and catastrophes (what we call "the four C's") is limited in range, boring to most viewers, and not a true reflection of all the day's events. What's more, these types of stories are often promoted in a sensational manner, along with graphic photos and explicit descriptions. Such stories are frequently repeated over several newscasts in a row, sometimes even into the next day.

These viewers clearly understand the necessity of reporting certain crimes, accidents, etc., but they also feel that stations should use better judgment in determining which ones to air, showing some justification as to why each report is being shown. They are adamant in their requests that a much greater variety of stories be covered, especially any positive things which may be happening in the local community.

Unsolicited, they even offer a long list of topics they'd like to see covered more often, topics that often take a back seat to the negative fare on local newscasts. They feel that stations should work a lot harder to give higher priority to some of these alternative subjects, keeping in mind that positive news stories are just as important to viewers as negative ones:

With So Much Negative News, There Needs to Be More Positive — "There's a lot of good things happening in the community, but you only hear the bad things...They need to do more good things happening, and give them an equal amount of time as the wrecks and the robberies...It's very upsetting unless you can do something about it. If people need help and they put a telephone number on, that's fine. If it's just reporting horrendous acts of violence, we don't appreciate that...We get the idea that everything is doom and gloom...If more positives were reported, it might be good for the younger generation in that there IS positive and better behavior they could follow rather than the crime and the negativism...You don't just wanna hear all the terrible things...Have more positive messages and images. We need to see the TOTAL picture, good things in the community. We need to see some beauty in our environment. Our society is bent on negativity...There's a lot of good things happening, and you wanna know about that. People don't REALLY wanna know `there was a big car wreck here, a bunch of people dead.' After awhile, you just get numb to it, you're just not interested in that. If there was a new station that was balanced equally between the bad stuff (as you were saying), or brings up an issue where someone was shot and they wanna change the gun laws, then that affects me, I want to know about that. But if someone ran into someone else, and there was no drunk driving or death, then that shouldn't be repeated...If everything you see is negative and bloody, it starts your day off wrong. It makes you feel bad...It's depressing, and it's not really important to us or affecting us."

There's Too Much Repetition As It Is — I'm getting sick and tired of crimes and catastrophes...It's the same thing all the time. Just hearing something different would be better. They run it into the ground repeating it over and over and over again. They specialize in it...It's just constant every day. After a couple of days, make it a two minute segment, not a 10 minute segment...It gets old after awhile...Almost every day its' the same thing. That's what's boring about the news. Do more coverage about other stuff...If you tell about tragedy, we've seen it and heard it. Then they try to bring it on again the next night and the next. We know what's goin' on. It should be publicized once...They dwell on whatever shooting or catastrophe happens that day. They keep runnin' the same story on the local news we have now in the ground. About this little girl whose mother sold her for crack cocaine."

Such Coverage Tends to Go Tabloid — "There's too much attention paid to trying to capture an audience rather than trying to understand it...If you read newspapers, you don't have to have it in your face...You don't have to view [graphic scenes] to understand them...Be more like the National Public Radio, and less like the Enquirer...I'm more interested in what's going on in the area. I'm interested in accidents, but only if it shows a reason for it, where people can learn something from it. But if it's shown just to be sensational, I'm not interested in that...They contradict themselves. They say crime is down, yet all we hear about is car robberies, etc. They spend too much time sensationalizing these stories."

Stations Should Cover More Good Community News — "Focus in on the communities, what's happening in the schools, what's happening in the local business areas of where we live, so we can understand. If there's a car wreck, it's off the highway in a couple of hours, but a business closing can affect us on a more personal level. If I go to the grocery store I shop at all the time and it's closed, I'd like to know why...When you watch the news, you want to know what's going on in YOUR neighborhood...There's so much more that's going on in our community...Do more on schools with championship teams...A good deed someone did, people helping people, the Salvation Army, the Rescue Mission...Agencies that help people...March of Dimes Walks, Cancer Society, benefits that go on in the city...You don't hear about the businessman helping his neighbor, all you hear about is the 7-11 that got held up...I feel the more violence you expose people to, it subconsciously plays on their minds and leads to other things and causes a lot of racism, etc. They're constantly showing African Americans arrested. If they show more positive things, like people helping out other people, it'd persuade"