CLEVELAND — Capping off a 40-year journalistic tradition, fictional action news affiliate WKBR-7 reported Tuesday at 11 p.m. that the common household object secretly killing your family is, after extensive investigation, all of them, every object, the entire house.
"Tonight: there's a silent danger lurking in your home, and you won't believe what it is," said anchor Brandi Castellano, delivering the words with the practiced grimace of a woman who has personally warned this city about its own ceiling fans 600 times. "It could be in your kitchen. It could be in your child's backpack. It could be the very chair you are sitting in right now. We'll tell you which one — after the weather, sports, a four-minute segment about a dog that can skateboard, and three commercial breaks. Stay tuned. Your life may depend on it. Or it may not. We'll see."
The segment, titled "INVISIBLE KILLER: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW," followed the rigorous structure that has defined local news since the dawn of fear-based ratings. First, a terrifying question was posed and left to ferment for 22 minutes. Then a reporter stood in front of a completely normal house at night, gesturing at it as though it had committed a crime. Finally, after sustaining maximum dread, the station revealed that the deadly threat was "germs," "stairs," "the air," or some combination thereof, before cutting immediately to a lighthearted story about a goat that thinks it's a person.
"Our research shows that viewers will watch an entire 35-minute broadcast if you promise them, in the first eight seconds, that their toaster might be plotting against them," said fictional news director Carl Pemberton. "We don't necessarily have to deliver. We just have to imply. Last week we ran a teaser that said 'Is your tap water turning your children into something else? The answer will shock you.' The answer was 'no.' The answer is almost always 'no.' But you watched, didn't you? You watched all the way to 11:47."
Media analysts describe the format as "a haunted house tour where the haunting is your own appliances." The genre relies on a delicate emotional choreography: the viewer must be made to feel that danger is everywhere and constant, yet never receive information specific enough to actually do anything about it. The ideal local news story leaves the audience more afraid, slightly more confused, and absolutely certain they will tune in again tomorrow at 11.
"The masterstroke is the pivot," explained fictional media scholar Dr. Lena Frost. "You spend three minutes implying that a child has been harmed somewhere by a phone charger. Then, without taking a breath, you cut to Brad in the studio holding a baby otter. The whiplash is the product. The viewer's nervous system doesn't know whether to scream or say 'awww,' so it just keeps watching, forever, slowly liquefying."
The threats themselves rotate on a seasonal schedule. Summer brings warnings about the deadly danger of going outside; winter brings warnings about the deadly danger of staying inside. There is a story for every holiday — "Could your Thanksgiving turkey be HIDING something?" — and a permanent reserve of evergreen panics involving apps that teens are allegedly using to ruin their lives, despite no teen ever being located for an interview.
The station's weather coverage operates on identical principles. Every approaching weather event, regardless of severity, is upgraded in the graphics department to look like the end of civilization, complete with a custom logo, a dramatic name, and a countdown clock. A routine afternoon of light rain becomes "STORMWATCH: AQUA-POCALYPSE," delivered by a meteorologist standing outside in the drizzle for no reason, gripping his own jacket, shouting over wind that is not present. "We have a rule," said Pemberton. "If the viewer can survive the weather simply by owning an umbrella, we are legally obligated to make it sound like a meteor. We once branded a pleasant 72-degree day as 'DEADLY CALM: THE SILENCE BEFORE SOMETHING' and got our highest ratings of the quarter. Nothing happened. Nothing was ever going to happen. That's the magic."
Consumer advocates have repeatedly pointed out that the stories almost never contain usable information, a feature the stations consider essential rather than a flaw. A useful story ends; a useful story is forgotten. A vague, ominous story lingers, metastasizes, and brings the viewer back the following night seeking a resolution that has been deliberately withheld. The genre's golden rule, insiders say, is "never solve the problem, because the problem is the business."
"I watch the news every single night because I need to know what's trying to kill me," said retiree Donna Schaefer, 68, who has been continuously afraid of her own microwave since 1994. "Last night I learned that my garden hose could give me a disease. I don't know which disease. They didn't say. But I threw the hose away, and then I bought a new hose, and tonight they're going to tell me about the new hose. It never ends. I've never felt so informed."
At press time, WKBR-7 was airing a special investigative report into whether the very television you are watching could be watching you back, with a definitive answer promised right after a segment about a local man who built the world's largest ball of receipts.