A Hard-Hitting Question --- What's Annoying About Local News?

     Local Fox station WNYW took a good, hard, humorous look at itself - and the local news industry, as a whole - last night during their 10 p.m. broadcast when reporter Joel Waldman covered the story we've been waiting forever to see: What's annoying about local news?

     I could personally write a list a mile long about the things that annoy me about local news, but that would be just like having a 3 minute stand-up for a 30 second story, so I'm just going to get to the point and post Joel's video ... and let you take a look for yourself.

     (Ugh ... for some reason the embed code is not working with me ... See the video here until I figure this out).

     So, there you have it, folks. The secret is out. The people who work in local news actually know that some of the things they do are gratuitous and annoying ... and simply for ratings ... But, when it comes down to it, who doesn't like to see puppies cuddling with babies and reporters in the rain (Oh Jimmy). 

Time's gonna make you a man someday and you won't want to go out and play with your friends, you'll just sit at home and watch the news at ten and the pubs will be closed and you won't have been with your friends ... (News At Ten, The Vapors)

Fox Nation, Pakistan Lets Me Wear RED, PADDED Bras! (I must be the Devil's Child).

     This might be old news but I recently heard about it and I was appalled ... well, not necessarily appalled, it's an affiliate of Fox News ... but was surprised that Fox could have made this big of an error in judgement and journalistic fact-checking.
     It seems as though the Fox Nation website saw a satire piece about an Islamic council in Pakistan protesting the use of padded and colorful bras for women and mistakenly reported it as fact ...
     Now, as someone who has a background in journalism, not only would have I taken that story with a grain of salt but I would have checked the sources of the story before reporting it as fact. I don't know how the reporter checked out the story but it was reported under the headline, "Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as 'Devil's Cushions.'"
     The story apparently originated from a Pakistani site much like our Onion News Network, called Roznama Jawani, which reports satire news and is currently boasting the headline "New High Tech Fighter Planes Equipped With the F U Bomb" ... Clearly not a reliable news source, if traced back.
     The story has since been pulled from the Fox Nation website but this is a screenshot of the original:

     According to one site, this is not the first time that Fox Nation has reported satire as news. Clearly they just don't seem to get the difference between fact and fiction ... and as a journalist, I'd have to say that is just plain bad, sad actually. That's one of the first things you learn as a journalist ... Get yo' shit straight, in plain English.

     After Fox released the article, Roznama Jawani released this Weekend Special Edition ... Maybe Fox Nation should report on this.