Update: Added Punching Kitty.com
What follows is a list of the major players in local St. Louis media along with the reasons why they suck and what they can do to suck less. This is us giving back and you’re welcome everyone. We won’t even feel bad when you do some of this stuff in a few months and don’t bother to credit us.
STLToday.com
This is going to be a continuing theme on this list, but STLToday is the biggest offender: Stop pretending the rest of the internet doesn’t exist. Don’t continue to waste your time covering national or world stories that have no connection to St. Louis, that’s what CNN, MSNBC, and (to a certain extent) Fox News are for, and people in St. Louis are aware of them. No one in St. Louis hears about an earthquake in China and pulls up STLToday for the story, so just stop wasting your time. Your sports section, clearly the biggest fish of the STLToday/PD, gets this nearly right. Maybe there’s a mention about national stories, but usually they have a St. Louis tie or are barely mentioned at all. While were on the subject of news, you don’t pay Derrick Goold or Bernie Miklasz enough, please give them some or all of Burwell’s money.
Bonus tip: Stop letting Joe Holleman pretend anyone gives a shit about what he has to say. For christ sake, the man does articles about him not posting articles just to make himself seem like everyone’s clamoring for another vapid pile of text turds. You, a struggling newspaper, pay him for this?
STL Beacon:
Your stuff is actually pretty great…it’s just…well…we forget you exist. A lot. Try to work on that.
KMOV (CBS, channel 4)
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As we told STLToday, stop wasting your time with national news. Your evening news is right next to national news and most everyone that has a TV also has access to 24/7 national news from a variety of sources.
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Unlike STLToday, your sports coverage is far less useful. Local highlights are fine, but don’t scroll scores because if I want to know who won the Laker game, I’ll ask the internet, not you.
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We know old people love it that you spend 10 minutes on the weather, but seriously, stop it. Don’t worry about the old people. No one really cares why it’s raining/snowing/sunny/cold, they just want to know that it is…oh and they already found that out a long time ago because they just looked at their phone. No one says “I wonder if it’s going to be nice tomorrow?” and then waits around until 10pm to find out. Oh and don’t worry about the old people, they’ll still watch because you’re CBS so they were already watching NCIS and probably lost the remote.
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It’s time local news people stopped talking like idiots with that horrible news person voice inflection. “Reporting live from this snowy street, I’m Chet Whogivesashit…KMOV…channel 4.” Stop it. It adds nothing and everyone makes fun of your for it, so just be the first local news station with some balls and tell your reporters to just tell people the news like they would describe it to their friend.
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No one cares if you sent a reporter to the snowy overpass, or the now empty ballpark, or the scene where a crime happened earlier but nothing at all is happening now. We believed you when you said it earlier.
KTVI (FOX, channel 2)
Same as KMOV.
KSDK (NBC, channel 5)
Same as KMOV, but replace the NCIS joke with a “Wheel of Fortune” joke, and also, you should stop lying to people or doing stories on grass growing.
KDNL (ABC, channel 13/30) & KPLR (WB, channel 11)
Not every channel needs news. Just show Simpsons or Dawson’s Creek reruns where you feel like news should go. Run a continuously scrolling banner at the bottom of those shows reminding viewers that the internet is more than just Facebook and porn, there’s also news.
Also, channel 11, you don’t play the movie Predator enough any more. Start doing that again.
Riverfront Times
The paper is pretty good, but the real problem is the web content. Most of it is fine, but it could be a lot better if you played to your strengths rather than forcing your weaknesses. Strengths: Full time job of news reporting, ability to write, ability to research, seemingly good connections. Weaknesses: Being funny.
Remember, and we say this with love, not all internet content has to be snarky. You would be better served by reporting less of the quick blurb news with some comment, and more longer stories with good in-depth reporting. We do the comment / quote / comment format because it’s the best we can do in a couple hours, you have all day and you were hired to report stuff. We’re not saying you don’t do this now, quite the contrary, it’s because you’ve done it well many times before that we cringe when we read some forced joke on a story beat to death online already, or yet another “Look St. Louis made this list of things!” post.
Joe Sports Fan.com
You’re cool.
News Radio Stations (KMOX, KTRS, That One That’s Basically Fox News)
You should…um…the uh…I’m sorry. We have no idea what you broadcast outside of the first parts Cardinal games when I get stuck in traffic.
Update: Since KMOX asked in our comments, here’s one thing you can improve on from last week: Stop calling people “pervy”!
Sports Radio Stations (101ESPN, 590 The Fan)
Please stop with the “[guy on our station] is [something cool sounding] … [clip from movie] … [Station ID]” promos. Also, and while we feel personally responsible for this in a pretty significant way (long story), stop making radio people write stuff on your website. 1. These people can’t write. 2. The over amplified local sports angst schtick you all do doesn’t work as well over text. 3. Your websites are like a if Godzilla ate every billboard on 44 from St. Louis to Six Flags and then shit it in my eyes.
Punching Kitty.com
We love you, like really love you, but proofread your stories more.
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So there you have it! Tips from us, to each of our local media stations. If we forgot anyone that you think should be on here, please let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@punchingkitty) and we’ll add them to the list ASAP.