Say what you want about the sweeps months leading to the lowering of standards for local newscasts as they leverage salacious stories to prop up their ratings, the problem has grown to be year-round.

CBS2’s January 16th 6 pm newscast had the following serious stories during the newscast:

1. No clemency for convicted killer (story time unknown due to the news channels trick of starting stories prior to the turn of the hour to hold viewers from earlier newscasts).
2. Ex-President Ford hospitalized (story time 31 seconds).
3. Marin Luther King trilogy including President Bush’s observance of the day, the Los Angeles MLK Day Parade, and Antonio Villaraigosa’s comments (total story time 71 seconds).
4. Rapist on the loose and impersonating a police officer (story time 27 seconds).
5. Manhattan Beach sewage spill (story time 45 seconds).
6. Wind guts buffet Los Angeles (story time 25 seconds).

But in terms of time dedicated to a story nothing was close to a recent study showing that caffeine might boost female sex drive. This was just the story that CBS2’s needed/wanted and they dedicated a whopping 104 seconds to wired rats having sex. The CBS2 report had interviews with several people and of course a remote at a Starbucks.

CBS2 then ended with a full-screen graphic with the following:

The caffeinated females would go and visit faster and stat with the males until they received sexual satisfaction.

Besides being silly, CBS2 got the story factually wrong. Ann Martin incorrectly led-in with “a new study says that it (caffeine) can boost a woman’s libido.” This is not what the study said and other, more careful and more accurate with the same information available to CBS2, pointed out that the report was with rats and that it’s too early to say whether it will have any affect on humans. But interviewing researchers in white lab coats is not nearly as much fun about asking women at Starbucks about whether the coffee they are now drinking is making them…well, “randy.” I’m all for human interest stories spicing up the news but if they involve science then they should be held to just a little higher standard than exhibited by CBS2.

Harold Greene ended with “There is nothing like a sexy little rat is there?”

to which Ann had this to say: “Ohhh, get frisky, mmm.”

Honest, we don’t make this stuff up.

Here is a more balanced approach to the same story (though not nearly as fun): WebMD

Welcome CBS2 and LA Observed readers. You (especially those who watch CBS2) might enjoy this Independent Sources category.

technorati: cbs2 ann martin harold greene

This entry was posted on Monday, January 16th, 2006 at 10:25 pm by Insider and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.