>>>>>Be thankful you are not limited to watching the news in Greensboro, NC. The channel 12 newscast is ridiculous, and I do not allow my daughter to watch it. However, the newscasters in Raleigh, NC are fairly well-spoken. It amazes me that only 2 hours away by car the language deteriorates to such an extent. (The local news can be rather funny though!)
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>>>>When I travel and watch local news elsewhere, I realize how lucky I am to be here in the big city (well, right next to the big city).
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>>>Philadelphia must be an aberration, then. TV news has become atrocious everywhere else.
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>>I didn't read it that way. Rather as "our local news are not good, but when I travel and watch them elsewhere, I realize how much worse they are there".
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>"News" is singular. Now if you said "The data are suspect" then I admire that.
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>Worse still, people now refer to "the media" as singular ( "the media is to blame for the ..." or "You've lost data? I think your media {as in "your DISK" FGSakes!} is faulty"). This is when I wish gun laws were far less strict in this country


There is a general difference in the use of singular vs. plural in the U.S. and UK. A sports team, for example, is referred to in plural form on your side. ("Manchester United are...."). That is probably technically correct but sounds jarring to American ears, since we always refer to a team as a singular unit.