Controversial Waffles Are Pretty Good

   Emily's blog, Controversial Waffles, definitely has a name that describes her blog. The name of her blog is unique and memorable, like the kinds of stories she writes! In her article "WHAS: Why Just Traffic Problems?" she really takes the time to explain the issue to you, something that not many blogs do better than her. I'd also like to add on when she says that WDRB doesn't report on the newsworthy stories. I've mentioned before (just about WLKY though) about how many of the stories seem to be insignificant, so it looks like two of the five news organizations have trouble with finding actual news.
   In her other critique of WDRB, she uses statements like "With so much fluff clogging the screens, one cannot simply view the news for intended " and also describes WLKY's 2 celebrity category as "measly" which I think is especially creative! Her writing style is something special to her blog, and makes reading her reports a lot of fun!

Classmate Review: Sylvia Goodman's "Does TV Have Too Much Influence?"

   When I looked through Sylvia's Blog, I found an article by her asking if TV has too much influence. I feel like some kinds of influence the TV has over us are good, while other kinds are bad. In the example you gave about people locking their doors, which everyone should definitely do every night, I feel like that's a good kind of influence. It makes people safer and although their town might not be dangerous, it gives us two good things: A source of entertainment and more security! After all, it's better safe than sorry.
   To build on what you said in the other example where people normalize fashion they see on TV, I don't really think it will ever be normal for people to wear swastikas. However, I like how fast our culture and other culture is spreading in the U.S. now that it's on TV. It also isn't just limited to fashion, there's also songs. When there's a song in a TV show, more people go to listen to it because without that TV show they wouldn't have heard of it.

WLKY Only has 4% of all Celbrity Stories

   WLKY did a really good job of limiting celebrity news. While news outlets like WHAS and The Courier Journal had over 100 stories and made up almost 35% of the category each, WLKY only had 12 celebrity stories. Since they had so few, they only made up 3.8% of the celebrity news category. This is about 7% less than WDRB, who had the penultimate amount of celebrity news at exactly 11%.
   Although WLKY did not have as much celebrity news as other news outlets, they also did not have newsworthy crime stories. (More Info Here) I feel like all news organizations should strive to make significant articles for their viewers rather than cater to the viewers desire to be entertained. 

How Radios Became Popular and Their Effects on Society

   Radio had a very big effect on both society and journalism.  With the creation of radio, people had something to listen to and to do with their free time. Radio hosts could tell stories, talk about sports, or spread music. It also affected Journalism because now citizens could listen to events as they happened. This made a whole new section of journalism: broadcasting.

  In 1892, the radio was first made. Like any new invention, at first it was a luxury and not many people owned it. However, by 1923, radios were an item even boy scouts could make. Radios were so popular because people enjoyed listening to radio hosts telling stories and reporting on  news. Since radios were live, people were at the edge of their seats listening to it. One event in which live journalism was important was when there was a blimp about to land but instead it crashed. Radio allowed for there to be a live broadcast of the event.

  Another thing which was discussed was that since there are only so many frequencies that we can put radios on, companies have to compete to get themselves on the radio. Due to this finite resource, companies need to be approved by various organizations before they can officially be a station. However, the approval process is often very competitive, as there are other organizations who also want that spot.    

   In hindsight the invention of the radio was a benefit for society, not only economically but also socially. It helped with the spread of music and culture and also gave people news and current events to talk about. I feel like without radio we wouldn’t be as opinionated as we are because we would be stuck hearing the opinions of those closest to us. With radio, we could listen to a talk show and hear the host’s opinions. This could open our eyes to new views we hadn’t even thought of.
   In today's age, I feel like more people listen to radio for the music than the news. However, now that we have television and the internet as a news source, this isn't really as much of a problem.

 



 

Influences of TV

  In our class discussion we talked about the creation of TV and the consequences of its invention. In 1927 when the television was first developed, they were very expensive.  As time progressed, prices decreased and soon they were a staple in most households. Since TVs were so rooted in mainstream culture, by 1979, 97% of Americans owned a TV. However, sometimes the way people acquired them was not always the smartest.

  Our get-it-now mentality often makes us pick choices that may not be the best for us. Rent-to-own services are one of those choices households make which can hurt more than help. With these services, people who cannot normally afford TV’s are now able to rent them for however many dollars a month for 10 years. The problem with this is that these businesses often get more than 500% of the original price of the TV  after the 10 year period is over. If the buyer could have waited another couple months or a year, they would have been able to buy a TV without having to pay the interest that accumulates when buying rent-to-own. I feel like these services should be limited by law in the amount of interest that they charge. The limitless amounts seem excessive and exploitive.

  The next part of the conversation was about how TV’s affected their audience. An example that was used was that if there was a city that seemed like it had a lot of crime on the TV, citizens of that city would believe that their city had more crime than it really did. Another way that it affected the audience was that when a viewer saw an actor wearing a certain fashion piece, they would want to wear it too. Advertisers understand this influence and try to use TV exposure sell their products. This gives them a lot of power over consumers. This can sometimes be a bad if an actor smokes on TV, so young people may get the impression to smoke. The same thing can happen in movies where there is a lot of partying or drugs. So it is a good thing that movies get ratings so that only certain items can be advertised to certain age groups.

 

WLKY News - Not Always Relevant

 

 

   WLKY prides itself on being local in their motto: “Live, local, and late breaking”, and although 76.9% of all their stories were local in the period of our survey, not all of them have local relevance. Many stories which do not have local relevance, or  do not have to do with the people,  mostly exist in WLKY’s largest category, crime. Stories in this section such as “Man Shot in Car” and unnecessary update articles like “New Details on Man Fatally Stabbed” do not relate directly to the viewers. Often, there are multiple updates to a story which does not affect the life of people not directly involved in the crime.

   Crime stories are generally easy to report on which is why they make up almost 40% of all  WLKY’s stories combined. The process to get a story on a crime is quite simple. First, all a news organization needs to do is keep a close ear on the police scanner and wait for any news of a murder or shooting. Then once they get the location, they can bring their vans out there and start reporting. They may even do a live broadcast at the scene. Once they have all their footage, they can bring it back to their building a write a quick story. Crime stories do not require a lot of investigation or research.  

   However, there is a way to improve these articles so that they relate to the viewers.  It might be a little bit of extra work for the news outlets. If WLKY set aside a section in an article like “Man Shot” they could include an explanation of what to do if you got shot. This could help educate readers just in case they got into a situation like that. This is not something that many news outlets often do, however it would be helpful.
   Here is an example of an actual story in which this kind of information could be useful: In this story, a woman throws her child off a bridge into freezing water. A section near the end about proper bridge etiquette or what to do when your stuck in freezing water would save future lives from events like this.

WLKY's Slip Up

   WLKY usually stays efficient when it comes to their website. They have new local and national stories every day, including videos. Soon after they release these new stories, WLKY also updates their “top stories” and “most popular” sections. However, this week they seemed to have slipped up. In two days, they did not update their “videos” sections. This means that news about the changing colors of Brown County trees and other stories were up for about at least two days. WLKY also forgot to name one of their articles and just had it listed as “new article”. In the week that this occurred, WLKY also had a lower amount of stories than they usual. While they generally have around 28 or 27, WLKY that week only had 23.  

  However, with a more recent check of WLKY’s website, they seem to be back to their usual with no mess-ups.