I’m not sure when it started – but it has spread seemingly to every station in every market in America. “It” is the penchant for reporters to say – “Monday night” in their packages – when IT IS Monday night. Why are you confusing your customers?

I’m sure some consultant will be blamed for this stupid idea – but I have been on a one-man crusade to stop this crazy practice. Alas, I have failed miserably.

I’ve been told the idea is to make the story make sense on the next day’s morning newscast. That’s great, but why sacrifice today’s newscasts to make the context right for tomorrow?

I may be slow – but when I hear someone say “Monday night” – and I know it IS Monday night – my brain pauses to say – “does he mean last Monday or tonight.” While this crazy idea usually only surfaces during late newscasts – I actually saw it used during a 6 p.m. newscast last week on the East Coast.

So – I beg producers and news directors everywhere to put a stop to this crazy idea. If “tonight” is important to the context of the story – have the reporter say it. I believe that in 99% of the packages it is NOT necessary. Here’s an idea: Write the anchor intro to let us know it happened tonight – and then they can do the same thing on the morning newscast the next day.

Let’s put an end to this customer confusing practice right now!

Jim

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.