Sunday, May 29, 2016

Commentary: A sneaky comment by a local news broadcaster, a teaser in a contest, and a rare type of news report in broadcasting

  • One of the news presenters for the local news operation at WPMI-TV (Greg Peterson) had sneakingly used part of their local 6:30 p.m. news program for their companion station ("Local 15 News at 6:30" for WJTC-TV) to say that the idea of a debate between two specific candidates for the presidency of the United States (Bernard (Bernie) Sanders and Donald Trump) could be "interesting" after presenting a report about the idea and mentioning a public poll about it on the official World Wide Web site for his own station earlier this calendar week.  
  • I was glad to a see a member of the local news operation for WALA-TV (Lee Peck) present a report about a convention for nominating candidates for the positions of president and vice president of the United States for a political party named the Libertarian Party on their local 9:00 p.m. news program ("FOX 10 News at 9:00 p.m.") this past Friday on the twenty-seventh day of this May since they and other news broadcasters usually did not have reports about candidates for either one of those positions representing that party or any other political party besides the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in their broadcasts over the past year.* 
  • One of the weather reporters for the local news operation at WALA-TV (Jason Smith) should have not said anything about a certain word for a recent contest of theirs ("The Cell phone for a Year Sweepstakes") not having "anything to do with any specific championship football program" or made any reference to it at all while presenting the word on their local 9:00 p.m. news program ("FOX 10 News at 9:00 p.m.") this past Friday since many residents of their local broadcast area would have been reminded of the team either way (he made its connection to the football program even more obvious for then when he said, All of the [University of] Alabama [football] fans will be thrilled; the Auburn [University football] fans, you can still get a free cell phone [service plan] for a year if you put in [the word] 'Tide' [for the contest] "). 
(*this Sunday was the last day of the convention (the candidate nominated for the position of president was a person named Gary Johnson whereas the candidate nominated for the position of vice president was a person named William (Bill) Weld))

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