Chapter 9: News

On Sunday, July 9th, I watched the 10:00 News on Channel 6 News out of Austin, Minnesota.

10:02: Preview to upcoming stories
10:03: Law enforcement torch run, Austin police officer runningn for special olympics, the only police officer in MN, ran 10 miles a day for 9 straight days. Touching moment when he met another police officer with a special needs child. They sold bracelets and overall raised $70,000. (2 mins)
10:05: Weather preview - 83 degrees (30 seconds)
10:05: Sex offenders in Rochester looking for other locations for housing, you can hear what they say @ City Council Meeting (40 seconds)
10:06 How the West Once Was - with reporter J Campbell - in the Historic West festival, you could arrest, try, and convict anyone -- $5 bail. (They "arrested" the reporter, and he reported from jail). Pics of kids and people doing old traditional things such as carrying water (in ice cream buckets?), tractor race (for the slowest tractor). The only dilemma of the event was that they needed to go get more bratwurst. They were raising awareness for Historic Society (??I think), and the event costs included antiques and hiring workers. (3 minutes) (Where?)
10:09: TCF Bank gave a $35 million donation and are getting their advertising out to 236,000 alumni & season ticket holders for credit cards. (Didn't catch where)
10:10: Two girls hospitalized after zipper ride accident in Hinckley. One serious head injury and another broken back. One victim's young cousin interviewed on the scene.
10:11: Man ran car into crowd (where?)
10:11: Plan crash - Russian airliner.
10:11: Rape and murder of Iraqi woman.... (who???)
10:12: Discovery is safe to fly home, thermal shielding clear.
10:13: Spamtown Teddy Bear Picnic, historical society collected teddy bears for a year, raising awareness for historical society.... ?
10:13 Preview of Mexican pastor, golf tournament, and weather (30 seconds)
10:14 News 6 commercial (15 secs)
10:14 Commercials: Suzuki, Kheun Auto, Ford, Extreme Monster Truck in Steel County, Lotto numbers
10:15: Riverside concerts, look for schedule for rest of season
10:16: On site in Lyle, interviewed Pastor and wife from Oaxaca, Mexico, visiting friends who helped over several years to build their church from Southern MN and Northern Iowa. Staying 12 days. (90 seconds)
10:18: Weather, live conditions in Rochester, Sweet spot on Monday, good sleeping weather
10:22: 1/12 men have a vasectomy, images of surgical tools and a man draped in operating room, says most don't come back to give their specimen.
10:23: Preview/review (30 seconds)
10:24: Commercials: Country concerts, Somerby golf club upcoming party, honkers Baseball, Alliant Energy, Midwest Wireless, Suzuki (Kuehn)
10:26 Sports: Honkers, lots of boring shots, they won. Twins, other baseball winnings, World Cup Final, Italy won after two overtimes and a shootout. Wimbledon Final. Somerby PGA Golf tournament coming to area. (3.5 mins)
10:30: Winner of Pizza - Kobaswaki at 53 and 3/4 hotdogs in 12 minutes (footage), must have been sponsored by Pelican Breeze in Albert Lea
10:34: Recap special olympics, carnival ride, follow up on guy with most base jumps in 24 hours
10:34: link to KAAL website
Commercial: Fishing...

My response:

There was so much information, even though the room was quiet and we were paying full attention, it was hard to keep up with my notes, I had a hard time figuring out who was where and when and why.

In the past several years, I've really only made a point of watching the news during some sort of local or national crisis, but this lineup was pretty low-key compared to what I'm used to seeing. There weren't any breaking news, there was a lot of focus on the weather, positive community events, and a few local accidents. What was disturbing was that there were two major national sporting that got very little mention: The World Cup Final and Wimbledon. They might have been mentioned in more detail during the 5:30 news, but it was still strange that it was only mentioned in passing. Apparently they couldn't find any local sports fans to interview. The national news were mentioned in a matter of seconds, but then they spent a considerable chunk of time reviewing at the end nearly everything they had already said once about the police officer running and the Western Days event.

Overall, the news had an "alls well, the community is safe" feel to them tonight. Channel 6 is based out of Austin but seems to cover more Rochester events than Austin or Northern Iowa events and news which makes me believe that they are more concerned with getting more viewers/advertisers from the biggest city in the area instead of giving a more well-balanced idea of what is going on in the smaller communities.