American Culture Assignment 9

Part 1

As the director of a local television station, I have a very difficult decision to make about today’s lead story. The city council has just voted to close city parks three days out of the week to save money. This is a very big issue that the community should hear about first, because it directly affects the people in the community. The response to this story should be mixed with some siding to save money for the city and others wanting to be able to use the parks all week. I personally am curious on the outcome from the community and leaders on this topic.
My dilemma started when a, well known, celebrity’s death broke the news wave. This is a very big story that will probably hit every news outlet within the hour if it already hasn’t and would do wonders for our station’s ratings. However this story doesn’t have a direct effect on the community and most of our viewers would already have heard of the news by time our show airs. With news hitting internet sites, social media sites, even the radio within minutes of the situation happening, it is almost impossible for our stations to be first with the news. On the other side of this if we don’t deliver the story about the celebrity’s death as our lead story then it will look bad on us as a station. Viewers who look to us for more detailed information, our just respect us for delivering the latest breaking news, will be disappointed that we didn’t deliver. Not to mention the big guys upstairs would probably chew me out for not competing with other networks and news media. The bigger, more exciting, and entertaining the stories are the better the ratings are. The happier the guys upstairs are. Let’s face it that’s what the majority of the news stations are about, ratings.
I feel our station has a very respectable reputation do to the fact that we give our viewers quality, well researched, informative news and have done this from the start.   Our viewers turn to us for news happening in the community, things...