I find the access to local news clips on YouTube pretty interesting. They're usually much bolder at covering controversial or off narrative topics or featuring pretty colorful individuals.

I've found video news to be mostly horrible. Print and radio are usually better.

I’m a loyal viewer of the KPIX5 local news YouTube channel.

Thanks for introducing this. (steering clear of comments section however)

> They didn't report false facts - they verified them.

Unless they're directly copying from press releases or, worse, police reports. Too many local (and for that matter, even national) papers don't have the money left to do actual boots-on-the-ground journalism.

[edit: moved my root post here, because you are dead on]

(re)Publishing statements from police/Gov/bigcorp - verbatim & w/o vetting for accuracy or context - is a scourge in local news rooms.

Bigger news orgs are absolutely guilty of this but I can pick up any local paper, anywhere/any day, and find an example. It's pretty discouraging.

In the case I was referring to, the local news outlets were usually the only ones who dug deeper and questioned the police/FBI/prosecution statements. National outlets rarely did it - it was big enough to be national news, but amongst national news it was a smaller item.

Of course, this was a big case in the region. For small cases, I find that both the local and national news outlets simply suck.

This reminds me of the Richard Jewell case I saw on the news as a kid. I remember how the news went on about him having nails in his garage and I was like "WTF? That's the best evidence they have?" even as a kid.

He was, of course, not merely acquitted but proven innocent later. I think they made a movie about that this year, but due to Covid it's been a long while since I've seen anything.

Sadly. Former reporter here, we did exactly this. Harried for time, little pay, just crank it out and move on to the next day.

This was 15 years ago, I imagine it's only gotten worse.

You are right that local news orgs are being bought up around the country, and funding for local journalism is drying up.

local papers are not always your best source of news in many areas, investigative television news is where its at and because there can be multiple of these in an area they tend to cover stories that printed media won't or don't always slant the same way.

The idea that news is only printed media long ago passed.

edit : the idea here is at the local level the source of news is flipped when compared to what is valuable at a national level.

These days I’d much more trust police reports or press reports than a narrative driven national outlet.

It's okay, you can admit it, if you bought an item, or two, or ten for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA

I guess it might the same story with the clip you linked as it was with this other instance of a lot of local news channels all saying the same thing: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/2/17189302/si...

"This is extremely dangerous to our democracy."

https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE

Propaganda.