Please excuse my lengthy absence on this blog. I've been trying for weeks to figure out what exactly it is I could write about when it comes to local issues, but either I couldn't get to the computer on time or I just could not figure out what to type about. Fortunately, I found something.
See, like virtually any city in the United States, we have multiple local affiliates that provide at least one daily news broadcast. Some of them are worthwhile, but many of them are just so much wasted time and resources. Our fair city is by no means any exception.
If I were to relate to someone just about to move to San Antonio, or even just to stay for an extended period of time, any information about our local news affiliates, this is what I would say:
WOAI (NBC) (Channel 4) -- Used to be, as KMOL, a fine and reputable news organization, but ever since Clear Channel bought it back and changed the call letters to the original WOAI, the station has gone preciptiously downhill in quality and fairness in terms of reporting and news coverage. Its news personalities, with the exception of Tanji Patton and Jacqueline Ortiz, are unctuous, stereotypical of the smarmy local news personae that are quite frequently the object/target of comedians' scorn. Biased in favor of the ethnically homogeneous South Side/Alamo Heights areas, and virulenty against the heterogeneousness of the Northwest/near-NW sides, as well as the West side, whose children often end up working themselves up to living in the middle class enclaves around the Medical Center. One could posit that as part of an argument that WOAI is subtly bigoted and in favor of Caucasians and Latinos living separately from each other.
KENS (CBS) (Channel 5) -- Note for those of you who, like me, are still enacting a personal boycott against Viacom: Even though this is a CBS affiliate, KENS's own productions are fine to watch as they are owned by the Belo Corporation. KENS does tend to skew to an older audience and has a large viewership to this day because of those elderly viewers' loyalty toward the station, but it is trying to work on its historically uneven and unprofessional news presentations. Some of its newer reporters even manage to seem professional! The directing and production of the news stories, OTOH, still needs a great deal of work to be up to par with what a large-city TV news station should be airing, something I fear will not happen for quite some time to come. Still, if you like that sort of thing, far be it from me to dissuade you from watching it.
KSAT (ABC) (Channel 12) -- The gold standard for local news as far as I'm concerned. Virtually every single person in front of the camera delivers the news, weather, and sports with the kind of seasoned professionalism that should be evident in a news organization that is supposed to serve the kind of viewership base that it (and other stations in S.A.) does. Beautiful camera work, smooth, fluid production -- basically, the only thing one might complain about are the slightly too-busy graphics, but that is such a non-issue compared to the complaints one could lob against the other local news affiliates. Truly deserves its position as the #1 rated news organization in the city, and it shouldn't be a surprise if that lead widens in the future. Signs of even more improvement with this station: The lessening reliance on referring to sides of town while reporting news stories, instead referring to addresses and neighborhoods.
KABB (Fox) (Channel 29) -- It airs only one news broadcast, from 9 - 10 p.m. (Traditional late-night news broadcasts in Central time zones start at 10 p.m.) Its production values and on-air personalities seem to show a real interest in wanting to have a large younger viewership base; its directing features fast cuts, its news personalities are the youngest in town, the background music is loud and could be either rock- or hip hop-based, etc. But there are two major issues that turn that seemingly positive attribute into something most people would recoil at -- (a.) it's a news broadcast provided by a Fox affiliate, and (b.) KABB is owned by the notorious Sinclair Broadcast Group, the same neoconservative media organization that banned its ABC affiliates from airing Saving Private Ryan because of its all too realistic portrayals of war. KABB's news broadcasts show their ownership and connections with Fox. That will be all.
There are no other local affiliates in the city that air local news. We have a CW affiliate that will air the occasional news briefs from KENS (since Belo Corp. also owns that affiliate), and KMYS (which is our local My Network TV affiliate) airs news tidbits from KABB because it too is owned by Sinclair (and shares studio space with KABB), but neither has its own news organization. Hopefully, as our city grows, this will change, and we will have more than one excellent and one passable news organization to rely upon.
