I had a 40 minute conversation with a local news director from one of our three local TV stations after pitching a fit via email about their election protest coverage the day of the inauguration. He was very gracious and answered all my questions and I was surprised at his personal political views. He  was very clear, however, that they research the community by several different methods and cover the stories that will feed the desires of the viewership for ratings purposes, I guess this was not a complete surprise to me, but I was hoping for more of an objective response coming from a news director.