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Many great conversations begin with “It used to be.” And so it is with this discussion of television “news” sources.
It used to be that all news sources were easily accessible to the public. Reporting “news” events was fast and simple. There was a telephone number to call. In the Internet age, telephones were replaced by an email address. In either case, there was an opportunity—NO, an “explicit request”—to report news.
This may be true today for newspapers (a fastly disappearing “news” source), local radio stations and networks, and for local television stations.
However, for the major television news networks from whence many Americans obtain their daily diet of “news,” independent and close-to-the source news appears to be undesired.
We explored this topic when we became perturbed by the lack of coverage of an important ongoing news event in Alabama: In June 2022, Yolanda Flowers became the first Black American in Alabama’s history to serve as a gubernatorial candidate for a major political party. This was news to us, and we wanted to help ensure that the story was told to the nation.
We went to CNN first. Fortunately, we were able to identify an Internet page to report the story. Unfortunately, the page malfunctioned (due to system overload, system failure, by design, ???).
We turned to PBS and identified a telephone number (not an explicit request for news content) to the “News Hour” program, but it was after working hours and there was no voicemail box.
Consequently, we decided to check all the “major” television news sources for ease of access to reporting “breaking news.” Table 1 (below) reports what we found. It shows that only two (2) of the eight (8) major news sources extend to the public explicit requests for “news tips/story ideas.”