I’m a news junkie, but the time has come for me to cut back. The first and best place to do so, I have decided, is local television news. It’s altogether too depressing, especially the nightly version that I usually watch before bed. In Chicago, where I live, most of each broadcast is given over to murders, carjackings, hit-and-runs, and interviews with grieving family members of the victims of these crimes.

Some years ago I stopped reading either of Chicago’s two local papers, the Tribune and the Sun-Times, those other vehicles of local news. Each paper grows thinner and thinner and, I am told by their readers, dimmer and dimmer. Local news isn’t readily available online. What brings me back time and again to local television is my continued interest in sports. Local stations provide scores, news of injuries, trades and the rest along with the weather, though I can get the latter, minus all the unnecessary flashy graphics, from my lady friend Alexa.