Your Hard-Hitting Local News! (Jesus Christ, This is Retarded)

The Local News has always been a target of mine. Embarrassingly innocuous at best, downright incompetent at worst, the Local News fills a void that none of us really have, unless your name is Mabel and you're tired of talking to your seven cats. At least the Local News gives you a brief respite from the terror that is conversation with Mr. Johnathan Mittens the Tabby at 6 and 11 every night. And for this, Mabel is satisfied.

I ultimately realized the general idiocy of local news one day when I saw a preview for an upcoming feature that night: we were about to be treated to an EXCLUSIVE! LOOK! at the life of a DOG CATCHER! My greatest questions have been answered, finally, by WBRZ of Baton Rouge! Praise Be! I have no problem with dog catchers--they perform a necessary service. But no, I was not dying to find out what went on in their normal routine. Call me crazy, but I imagine it involved driving around in a van, picking up the occasional stray, and not doing anything. It was a story that at least did not require advance notice.

I thought perhaps I had escaped the general idiocy of local news when I moved to the Pacific Northwest. Actually, beyond the first week where we were stuck with only broadcast channels and we watched the local news out of sheer boredom, I avoided the news. CNN and the newspaper were good enough resources. But only a few months after the move I was once again confronted with unimaginable ridiculousness:



TONIGHT AT 11!

A DAY

IN THE LIFE

OF A DOG CATCHER!!!



Dear God. It's inescapable!

I would have thought that local news' saving grace would be perhaps the big city. I've been spending my summer in DC, and one would imagine that local news would not be nearly as bad. I mean, it's our nation's capital! Government is here! Shit goes DOWN! No Dog Catcher Biographies for us!

Once again, I totally overestimated everything (or underestimating? I am not sure as to what I was estimating exactly, I'm kind of vague here. Suggestions are appreciated). Once again without cable, my nights are spent watching the broadcast channels. While this has had terrible consequences itself (I actually watched multiple episodes of CSI:Boise and Law & Order:Meter Maid Patrol (whoo! cheap stupid jokes!)), I was once again exposed to local news. While news of what's going on over on the Hill certainly was reviewed, we also were able to cover such important news as that THERE WAS A GODDAMN THUNDERSTORM. WITH LIGHTNING. AND PEOPLE SAW THE LIGHTNING. They were even interviewing people about the lightning. I shit you not, this was an actual caption of an on-air interview:

John Standen
SAW LIGHTNING

I don't know if this is worse than the hard-hitting exposés that have been featured on back-to-back weeks on the local FOX affiliate. They've uncovered the secret behind the "5-Second Rule" last week, and today be prepared to be astounded as to whether "Double Dipping" goes beyond mere social faux pas!


Why did I ever go to J-School?