Viewership of local nightly TV news has seen a steady decline since the early 1980s. And the remaining audience is aging, a turn-off for advertisers seeking people with malleable brand loyalties. So the newsroom staff is slashed, the content sleazed up, and we end up where we are today, with nightly infotainment shows falsely advertising themselves as “news.”
But widespread rejection of these programs may say more about the message than the medium. Let’s not write off the local nightly TV news entirely. Let’s rethink it.
One place to start lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness is creating the media you want to see. Imagine a nightly, Twin Cities-focused news alternative that offers diverse perspectives, dissenting voices, illumination of current issues and an approach that empowers and inspires people to become engaged.
I’ll be posting the details of this nightly TV news proposal in the next several posts, so stop back!
