Being the director of a local new station, I would cover the local story first with a high recap of the celebrity death to follow. When people tune into the news, they want to know what is happening around them first. A celebrity death will make headlines on every kind of network, but the local happenings will only be the local newscast and be more vital. The park story will have more meaning to the people of the community and could affect the everyday happenings for them. With cities closing parks 3 days a week to save money, I would want to the communities to know why and how this will change their everyday lives and schedules. How was closing the parks 3 days a week chosen to save money or some other programs that could be out there. How is the closing of the parks going to affect the city workers jobs that maintain the parks? I would also want to inform the communities of why the money is being saved and what the funds are being used for instead. It would be important to inform the people of options that they may to help get the parks reopened if necessary or who they would try and petition to help with it as well.
After covering the local community story of park closures, I would cover the celebrity death with as much accuracy as I could. People will continue to talk about the celebrity death for a long time, so it can be covered after the more pertinent local story. Celebrity stories tend to be very wide spread and have enough coverage with the different outlets to obtain it by. I know that I would not want to lose viewers or ratings because I did not cover the story, so I would clearly still cover the death.
With wanting to keep ratings for my station, it is important to keep your local community tuned into your programming with stories and happenings that are closer to them. Knowing that I have a local person delivering the news makes it more personal as well where the celebrity death does not need the same kind of personal connection.