Kennedy talks to longtime North Texas TV producer John Sparks who is is working with Rowlett at the site created by Chesapeake Energy Corp. Sparks says that he and Rowlett have taken criticism for leaving television news for an advertising venture, but his argument is that it can't be less noble than TV news:
Now, local TV news has less content, and also less money, because viewers are gone to cable or the Web.
"So you get police blotter news," he said. "People tell us crime is a concern, and it is. But there’s a shooting somewhere every 20 minutes. There’s a reporter standing there because it’s cheap to cover, and because it triggers that fear factor that keeps people watching."
That "fear factor" bothers Sparks.
"You hear people complain about the line, 'Coming up next!’ " But it’s because people are flipping through 200 cable channels. . . . So you scare them — sensationalize something so they’re afraid to tune away."
Over and over, Sparks described TV news with the words sensationalism and tabloid. READ THE RESTCONTACT: Leave me a Houston or Texas media news tip | COMMENT: Click to leave your thoughts on this post here
