How is that news?

Dear CBS Channel 4,

while watching the noon news on my lunch hour today, you ran a 7-minutes new segment on something i don't believe to be newsworthy. to me, it was shoddy journalism and a hallmark of a slow day. of course i'm speaking of your wall-to-wall coverage of cherry creek mall finally "fulfilling its dream," as you put it, of getting a nordstrom store.

i certainly understand that there are many people, especially in that area, that are excited about this development, but a simple mention of, say 30 seconds or so, would have sufficed. i suspect that your program director approved such a lengthy feature on a non-story because you staff the noon newsdesk with all women, who were more than happy to continue extolling the virtues of the store after the taped story had ended.

thankfully, i was not living in the area when saks fifth avenue opened at the mall, because i'm sure at that time when denver was considerably smaller, you'd have taken a full half hour to describe the financial windfall for the city.

fact is that outside of the cocoon and ritz of cherry creek--denver's answer to chicago's magnificent mile, 5th ave. in nyc, and rodeo in BH--there are actually things going on that impact people living in reality. it's a shame that you haven't studied your viewership closely enough to know that, aside from the 1,000 people that flooded the mall for the opening, most of us have big boy and girl responsibilities like work. maybe you can take that into account and give us more than 2 minutes on weather, more than 33 seconds on traffic, and--and this might sound crazy--some stories about the local economy that we might not all know about.

the crux of the issue that you, like your counterparts at abc 7, nbc 9 and fox local "news" (who employs the scrumptious libby weaver), continuously bombard us with ridiculousness and forget all about the world going on around us. abc 7 has a segment they call the "7 everyday hero," which is a dedicated story about a local citizen going above and beyond to give back to the community. this is what we in the viewing business would call "worthwhile." maybe you can take a hint from the channel devouring you in the ratings. that is, of course, if you're not waiting in line to buy shoes in the 1/4 acre shoe department at nordstrom.