Ed Rabel

In response to last week’s commentary by Ed Rabel critical of local TV news, the president-GM of WXII Greensboro/Winston-Salem, N.C., rebuts: “We live in a new golden age of over-the-air television. Leading stations with strong newscasts find themselves offering more services to more people than ever before.”

Former NBC News and CBS News correspondent Ed Rabel: “Not to be dispiriting, but there is very little reason to watch the local news. If you’re satisfied to simply see the day’s digest of house fires, fender benders and high school reunions, fine. Otherwise, the … so-called newscasts are a colossal waste of time. There are reasons you don’t get the news on local TV. Station owners and managers forbid their news departments from stepping on toes and ruffling feathers, out of fear that such stories might insult local advertisers or offend politicians on whose toes reporters might stomp.”