Yesterday’s News is Not NEWs

You can’t be a journalist and try to pass off yesterday’s news as new. News is NEW with an s on the end, get it? It’s the epitome of telling people the latest information you know as a reporter. So if the latest information you know is yesterday’s news then you don’t have any business being in the news business.

Three times over the last week I came into contact with anchors who tried to pass off yesterday’s news as today’s (all of them had news go on the air from the day before). That kind of makes it #fakenews, because it’s totally out of date. Either they made an honest mistake and didn’t copy their new news over their old news and save it as new (still with me?), or they’re lazy.

I know, that may come off as harsh, but if you’re supposed to be reporting several brand new (recorded) newscasts, you should be searching around, checking online and making sure there’s nothing new (maybe make a call or two?). We all know this, but what if the station manager tells you, hey your news is old? Or if you’re the manager and listeners start to call, because you’re too busy with something else at the moment and you didn’t get to hear the latest news report.

As a manager, sometimes we have to make harsh judgment calls, but when anchors or reporters aren’t making an honest mistake, and they just don’t care, they just have to find a new line of work.

Just my two cents, what say you?