If people want good news, they can always tune in to their local station. The hometown news hour is not a loss leader like the network, it has to make a profit and give the advertisers what they want: big ratings.

So after a too-quick glossing over of crime, City Hall malfeasance, infrastructure breakdown, gory traffic accidents and the obligatory foreclosure , comes the feelgood stuff.

We get the usual kittens rescued from trees, gorilla athletes grunting incoherent platitudes at surly juvenile delinquents, a particularly queasy little feature our local station does trying to get you to adopt yet another highly disturbed youth, and the obligatory "Daddy's in Iraq and our church helped pay the rent" tearjerker. They usually spend some time plugging their prime time programming, too. Shouldn't that be illegal?

Then comes the REAL news: sports! It's the longest segment with the most abrasive anchors, and it is strictly entertainment. Most of the stories lately are about how unreasonable the city fathers are because they won't pay for the home team's new stadium. The weather follows, a way-too detailed planetary environmental report with all sorts of unnecessary computer graphics that would quickly put you to sleep except that the weather girl has a set of hips on her that can raise the dead.

And of course, there is a three minute commercial break every 45 seconds. No need for much actual content, after all, in the unlikely event they do tell you about something you really need to know, they interrupt the story just when it starts to be useful by referring you to their website.

And the sad thing, is network news is starting to look more and more lkike the local affiliate's every day.