None of SPRYTE’s full time employees have televisions. They are of a breed that streams what they want on demand, including news.
I hope they stream local news because if they don’t and never see it, that puts them at a disadvantage for pitching broadcast news stories, but that’s another blog topic.
This blog is about TVs and watching local news. My house has many TVs, large ones. And I have one in my office too that I watch all day.
I like to watch news all the time on TV, particularly local news. That’s because, in real time, I like to know what’s going on. Does anyone else out there have an insatiable appetite for headlines and breaking news?
Now, I know I can get breaking news on social media and I do, all the time, especially on Twitter. But, for me, it doesn’t compare to seeing and hearing live television.
At the Shoreham Inn in Vermont last weekend, I thought about this a lot. We weren’t camping so I was caught off guard by not having a TV in our room. Not only was there not a TV in our room, the “bird” room adorably decorated with bird houses and comfy quilts, there wasn’t even one in the first-floor common area/lobby.
Gadgets Don’t Make Up for It
It’s not like I wasn’t reading an amazing historical novel about India in the late 1920s, (Julia Gregson’s East of the Sun.) Or, that I didn’t have at least some of my gadgets with me for keeping in touch and reading daily newspaper digital replicas, my Samsung Galaxy S9 and my Mini iPad or my business reading folder, stuffed with printed out emails and public relations documents.
Still, it just felt like something was missing. Maybe I’m addicted to the white noise constant news talk provides.
In any case, when we got home to our casa of many TVs, I turned on the one channel I know has local news on Sunday nights at 6 pm, NBC 10.
It didn’t disappoint. Yes. I did want the weather forecast for the week and to be caught up on my hometown sports teams.
I also saw the mayoral candidates in the neighborhoods campaigning for the upcoming primary. Two past clients were also in the news, one in a negative way, one in a positive way.
That got me thinking about how we might reconnect and I made a note to reach out to them soon.
I could go on with a long, banal list of the thoughts I have as the owner of a public relations agency when I watch local TV news. I think you get the picture, or should I say are you getting the live digital video feed?
-Lisa Simon
