A Christmas Present..or two..or ten.

The following video is a very nice compilation from the folks at the Conan O'Brian show that reveals some important truths about the way local media functions:

As one can see from the clip, it is clear that many local and national news anchors are all literally reading from the same script. As this excellent article from Jeremy Barr at Poynter shows, many local news stations are simply buying or using pre-packed content from other sources. This pre-packaged content from various wire-services or public relations firms is often just read word-for-word by the anchors, a process known in the business as "ripping and reading." This is another excellent example illustrating Chomsky and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Media. In this case, this nicely illustrates the third filter, which is the fact that media outlets rely on a limited range of sources in crafting their news content. The fact that so many news stations are relying on exactly the same source provides as clear an example of this as one could imagine.

h/t to the AV Club