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.