Whenever I click on the homepages of national news sources such as MSNBC, CNN, or Fox, I always think I clicked on the “Politics” tab when I get flooded with stories either about President Trump or the 2020 democratic candidates. Sure, politics is very popular with people and is an unceasing source of drama and newsworthy attention. But when I look at the news, I do not care that a congressman’s lawyer got arrested, I prefer to hear the “breaking overnight” local news, not a two week old political story.

According to a Pew Research study, 69% of political news coverage about President Trump was based on his character and leadership in 2017, and not his agenda or ideology. When I consider that some of those stories are most times created under baseless claims and contain no facts whatsoever, I realize just how many other current events and local news stories could be covered that directly affects my peers and I.

According to a Marketing Charts study, 67% of teenagers prefer to get their news from either television, social media or via website sources, which are all places that local and national news companies use to advertise and publish their works. With teenagers mainly relying on these sources to get reliable news, they are missing out on other local non-political issues that should be commonplace, and may directly impact their lives.

Some examples of local news stories that should be covered more include: the multiple teenagers that have been murdered recently in Olathe, Lawrence and KCK, to Kansas City having a good chance to have one of the most dangerous severe storm seasons in history.

Even though local news does cover significantly less political stories than national news does, they still cover more than they should, and I believe that leaves everyone, especially my peers and I, critically uninformed.