A Review of WBAL-TV

If there is anything that is more present than ever in journalism today, it is bias. The word has always had negative connotation, but in reality, it is something that is truly impossible to avoid. There are many ways media companies can minimize their own bias, but at certain times, it will show through.

With that being said, I have grown up watching WBAL-TV news. News broadcasting is something that I personally tend to stay away from because of bias, WBAL however, is different. While the parent company, NBC, has been noted as a network that shows a left wing bias; I think that WBAL tends to hover much more in the middle. The network has always been good at finding multiple sources and covering different sides to each story in all of the broadcasts that I have seen. The station has been named a top three newscast in the country by the National Headliners Association. They have also been the recipients of the Edward R. Murrow award, George Polk award, and a Gavel award from the American Bar association for excellence in news reporting and journalism.

The awards do not tell the whole story for this news network. The cast has always been consistent and comforting. Within the Baltimore region people like, Stan Stovall, Gerry Sandusky, Deborah Wiener, and Jayne Miller are house hold names. I can personally remember watching Stan Stovall as a kid and he is still there for the nightly news. This kind of consistency is something that news broadcasting simply does not have any more, so it is always nice to see.

In terms of entertainment, WBAL shows and discusses different content than regular news stations. A part of this may be because this is a local station, but none the less captures my attention more frequently than constant banter of Bill O'Reilly on Fox News. WBAL delivers a nice balance of your normal "need to know" news but also delivers "feel-good" stories throughout their broadcasts.

Like I said earlier, the absence of bias is impossible. There is bias all over this blog post as WBAL is a news broadcast that I have personally grown up with. In both my experience and my opinion however, this is a broadcast that has always represented issues fairly. As far as I am concerned; live, local, and latebreaking is the way to go.

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