WRAL: "Don't tase me, bro!"

You know, this could just become a twice-monthly series: "How poorly can WRAL cover the Durham City Council?"

Let's see here -- besides covering Durham's drought and alternative water sources (which they and every other media shop in town can cover just fine), what else from last night's four-plus hour meeting did they find fit to cover?

The investment of $3 million+ to buy out homeowners in the failed Rolling Hills development project, and the decision to negotiate and execute a development agreement with two major national developers in a move that could bring over a thousand new housing units to central Durham? Nope; as of 8:15 am today, not a peep.

Further debates on water and sewer extensions into greenfield development, a move that could lead to more housing units being constructed in a drought, with developers now at risk that they might not get a water connection to their units when done? Zip from the 'RALians.

What about the City taking baby steps forward to transfer control of a site in Brier Creek that WakeMed wants for a hospital to serve the fast-growing community there? Nada. (In fact, they haven't covered WakeMed's Garner/Brier Creek expansion at all, from what I can tell; the N&O did.)

The renovation of the Durham Centre parking deck, now in Craig Davis Properties' hands? Uh-uh.

No, WRAL picked out... a consent agenda item:

Yes, "Durham Cops to Get More Tasers" is the first story the WRALians have published out of Monday's City Council meeting.

This kind of bizarre coverage seems best explained as fitting into one of two categories:

• WRAL lacks the competence or interest to actually cover City Council meetings.
• WRAL just loves any story with a "crime in Durham!" angle. Especially one that shows a Derm police officer (the inimitable Sgt. Gunter) getting tased in a demonstration this summer.

Come to think of it, is this necessarily an either/or?

Comments

[Freddie]

WRAL Blows!! They're always biased towards Durham...It's pretty sad when I've been here for only a year and notice things like this...Where is WRAL based out of anyways?

[James Martin]

WRAL is a big proponent of the "if it bleeds, it leads" philosophy that is permeating network television. That and their consistent lack of analysis, insight or even fact checking usually leads to me laughing wildly at their coverage of well, anything. That and Cullen Browder just bothers me. If I wanted smug annoying frat boy, I'd watch Craig Kilborn reruns of the Daily Show.

[weege]

I think you were right on the money with the crime angle. This is now their top story as of 1:20pm...

"Gang Report Criticizes Durham Schools, Law Enforcement"

[John Schelp]

For the record, both ABC-11 and NBC-17 sent camera crews and aired coverage of yesterday's decision by the State to recognize Durham's 1957 Royal Ice Cream sit-in.

WRAL did not.

[Will]

I wonder if anyone from WRAL will take the time to comment here, like Don from Durham Magazine has done...twice.

[Freddie]

Funny...Their top story as of 2:00 pm now is "3 Unindicted Duke Lax Players Sue University, Durham".

[Matt]

Rolling Hills is practically within sight of several Capital Broadcasting properties, too!

[Will]

We'd better stop before it gets worse - now they've added "Gang Report Critisizes Durham Schools"

[Will]

Woops - misspelled "criticizes" sorry

[Jonathan Jones]

Aww, come on now. We all know that you can't explain a complex story like Rolling Hills in 20 seconds. And that's before you even get to the question of video. I mean, really, who doesn't want an excuse to see someone tased on the nightly news, even if it is old footage?

Teevee always goes for the low-hanging fruit.

[Freddie]

Yeah, that's why you have all these people who believe everything they see or hear on the news and when all they see is Durham, Durham, Durham, it adds to the negative stigma the city has to all those who live in the surrounding area. People become hermits when they see all this negativity. Imagine what it does for a place like Durham compared to Cary, Raleigh, Chapel Hill etc. Nobody will want to come check out a great restaurant in downtown and they'd rather go to Applebee's in Cary simply because they believe they will get tased by a cop, sexually molested by a Duke lacrosse player, or wrongly accused by the Durham court system.

[Valerie]

This kind of news coverage makes my mom call to say how worried she is about us here in Durham. Thanks, 'RAL!