Most local news content is exempt from the balance rule.

Evidence

The most astonishing thing about ‘‘balance’’ in these local papers was just how very few stories required it. If metaphors for newswriting come from playgrounds, a dizzy, loud, unfocused merry-go-round ride is a better image than a creaky, slow, ‘‘balanced’’ see-saw. Most sections of the paper — sports, home and garden, science, real estate, entertainment, the funnies, and the obituaries, and of course, the pages and pages of ads — were exempt from the balance rule. Tales of demon babies, mysterious poisonings and freak accidents, zoo animals, nature, weather, health, consumer tips: none of these usually required balance. — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 1516

Categorization

• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 1516