The Lack of Good Journalism In Idaho

My wife and I watch the local news each morning. In the Boise area where we live, there are really only three options for news. Each of the major network's local affiliates: ABC ( https://www.kivitv.com/ ), CBS ( https://idahonews.com/ ), NBC ( https://www.ktvb.com/ ).

We have tried them all and some days, if we awaken early enough, we can catch all three company's broadcasts.

But I will say that for all that I like about the personalities, the journalism is lacking and badly.

To begin with, each of the stations probably has about 22 minutes of airtime in a 30 minute broadcast and of that 22 minutes of broadcast, I'm guessing a total of at least 5-7 minutes is spent on weather. Recently, even though we really have just one freeway, one of the stations has decided we all need to know about the traffic. Now don't get me wrong, I want to know about the weather. But 4 weather breaks in a 30 minute broadcast seems excessive.

Additionally, at least one the stations spends a couple of minutes on Hollywood news. Never mind that there are probably half-a-dozen shows on the same station that provide entertainment news.

My big complaint boils down to the fact that they don't spend enough time on local news. Our area is BOOMING and growth seems out of control and in many instances, citizens here don't realize something big is happening until it happens.

When we can all get weather, traffic, entertainment, national news, and professional sports on our phones, tablets, and computers, why doesn't one of these stations attack the news with a journalism vengeance? Send a reporter to the city council meetings. Report on the local news with stories OTHER than those any of us can read on the newspaper website. Our citizens need a good local source for new and instead we get weather on the sixes.

Here's a couple of the websites for the news stations and the paper

Where's the one doing something different?

We can do better, can't we?