I was a local television reporter for a long time, before switching to the digital side of things.
You're totally correct with most of the above.
One of the crazy (and sometimes fun) parts of the job of being a local television reporter is trying to be an expert in something new every day.
Really what it comes down to is having to try to figure out how to distill down a huge amount of information into a one minute, thirty second chunk of video - when you do that, by nature, only the 'sensational' stuff makes the cut.
Then it gets cut again by someone who has no idea about any of the stuff you left out of the story when they write a promotion about it, which is how you end up with teases like "What you're eating right now can kill you".
You're totally correct with most of the above.
One of the crazy (and sometimes fun) parts of the job of being a local television reporter is trying to be an expert in something new every day.
Really what it comes down to is having to try to figure out how to distill down a huge amount of information into a one minute, thirty second chunk of video - when you do that, by nature, only the 'sensational' stuff makes the cut.
Then it gets cut again by someone who has no idea about any of the stuff you left out of the story when they write a promotion about it, which is how you end up with teases like "What you're eating right now can kill you".