Predictable reports on consumer rip-offs.

Reports about consumer rip-offs are dominating television investigative reporting efforts. There are fewer in-depth investigations being conducted, although the public seems to prefer the more superficial, consumer-oriented reports. One reason for fewer in-depth investigative reports is that TV stations do not give reporters time to develop these types of stories because it is not profitable.

What passes for investigative reporting on local TV news these days is often a mishmash of self-serving, superficial reports on consumer rip-offs and government waste. Much of it is utterly