Aug 25, 2012 6 min read

Local TV news stinks. Maybe you saw my mug pop up on your TV screen a few times from 1978 through 2007, when I was working as a sportscaster for WTAE (1978-85) and KDKA (1985-2007).

That’s about half of my life spent working in local TV news, and maybe you think I say that it stinks out of bitterness because I wish I were still getting my several minutes of face time per day.

Not at all.

I got in when the getting was good and got out when it was even better. I made a nice living and have no regrets. I have a lot of friends who are still working in front of and behind the cameras, and most of them agree with me when I say that the product could be so much better.

As I wrote in my book, “Just Watch The Game,” the longer the person has been showing up on your TV screen, the more embarrassed he or she probably is by how low the product has sunk.

I won’t waste your time by telling you about how your time is wasted by all three stations with video of vacant house fires and stories about the latest shooting or car crash.

What bothers me the most is the absence of commentary and debate. The three local network affiliates put out a combined 57 1/2 hours of news Monday through Friday from 4 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. You know how many combined minutes are devoted to editorial comments?

Zero.

It’s an election year, and we are living in the age of talk radio, Twitter and Facebook, when the entire world is caught up in the exchange of opinions. And there is not one person whose job it is to express what might be an original thought?

It’s bad enough that no one in the news department is doing it, but how can there be no sports commentary?

Don’t blame the guys reading the sports. I know all of them, and they have plenty to say and are all capable of forming an original thought and expressing it. Their bosses won’t let them.

It became apparent during my last few years at KDKA that the bosses didn’t want anybody to say anything that might offend a viewer. By the time I left, they didn’t want anybody to say anything that a viewer might disagree with.

That makes for some pretty boring TV.

There was a time when Myron Cope was doing commentaries every night on WTAE and Bill Curry was doing them on KDKA. Sam Nover at WPXI wouldn’t do one every night, but he was more than happy to take a piece out of somebody’s behind when the mood struck him. So were Stan Savran and I.

My boss at KDKA called me in one day in the late 1980s and told me she wanted me to do a nightly commentary. She gave me a $10,000 raise for being a good sport.

Remember, this was long before there was any such thing as the Internet or Twitter. Stations believed the people on the air made the difference. There was a time, before cable TV and satellites, when the Pirates and Penguins were televising 25 or 30 games per season.

Most nights, if you wanted to see what happened during the game, you had to either be there or be in front of your TV to see the highlights on the nightly sports broadcast.

Still, in 2012, most local sportscasts begin with the highlights of a Pirates or Penguins game that ended less than an hour before and was available to watch as it was happening.

Now, with the Internet, what reason does anybody have to tune in to the 11 p.m. sports for highlights? They’re available on demand on everybody’s cellphone.

Commentary and opinion would be the one thing that might get viewers to tune in. A sportscaster with the ability to come up with a unique perspective on the game or the topic of the day might actually give viewers a reason to watch.

That won’t happen in 2012 because news managers are gutless.

Boring is safe.

They’re still raking in the big bucks and will be able to for a long time because, in Western Pennsylvania, they have an old audience. But, as the old people die, the young people won’t be there to replace them. They don’t need any stinking highlights. They’re looking for originality and maybe a little debate.

They’ll get their news when and where they want it and it won’t require sitting through three minutes of weather.

Remember in 2006 when Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger almost died in a motorcycle accident? Remember all the outpouring of sympathy and support and the stories about how Roethlisberger had learned his lesson and would never ride on his motorcycle again without a helmet?

As usual, since it was a story involving the Steelers, all three stations embarrassed themselves with overkill.

One day soon after his recovery, a KDKA reporter spotted Roethlisberger riding his motorcycle without a helmet. When Roethlisberger saw the camera pointing at him from the passing news car, he gave it the middle finger salute.

When the reporter, thinking he had the lead story of the day, brought the tape in and showed it to KDKA’s news director, he was told that the video would never see the light of day.

It never did. The tape was destroyed.

Wouldn’t want to upset the Steelers.

It’s been all downhill since then.

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter. His website is justwatchthegame.com.