LOCAL OPINION
Very often many of us place special value on what we continue to call “local opinion.”
We sometimes overlook the fact that, as with the case of “the Old Gray Mare” of one of yesterday's song, “ she ain't”, by a long shot, anything at all like she used to be said to have been.
In the current electronic news-fed phase of ours, with it's ever-widening awareness of the news which fills ever moment of our days and nights, local opinion has been warped somewhat go become an amalgam of news covering a larger area. To some extent, many the basic down-to-Earth, at-home evaluations, and the ideas leading to action from other sources not so closely related to the grassroots of our being.
We mis-quote our selves.
An example of what has taken place can be seen in many areas where there are three or more successful TV stations in operation. An additional station, or one of the group, decides to center on “local news” and the change works well for a time. Suddenly the viewer finds the world to be a much faster, much more violent place than he ever thought it to be. With a local news format in place, air time seems to be quickly taken over by a string of violent acts which seem to comprise the major portion of the news day after day. It will seem to be even more distrubing when the viewer realizes other station's news departments have minimized such stories to the very edge of existence or have simply ignored them. After a month or so, it is ofter turns out the the very individuals who wanted the local news approach, found themselves opposed to it. The station becomes one with a reputation for shadowy facts about social and sex crime, vandalism, carjacking, robbery's as well as the use of bad language and the sort of conduct which goes with such living. Local news, of such fundamental importance to us not too long ago, comes to seem always turbulent, uncertain and endlessly violent even unto death. That feeling , which seems to grow with attempts to center on local and local opinion. Many viewers are offended and believe their community o be pure and upright in all things - at all times.
It may well have been that the concept of local news went out of style with demise of the traditional American weekly newspapers. The editors of those papers, held a great deal of what has proved to have been good for Our Land.
A.L.M. August 3, 2004. [c445wds]
