Local News Blender: Nora The Cat

Tuesday, the Inquirer brought us the tale of Nora, the piano-playing cat who has been wowing idiots, the easily amused and those looking to waste time at work for several weeks now.

And, when one of the dailies does a nice good piece of local soft news, the local television stations pounce. And so, yesterday, Fox 29, 6 ABC and NBC 10 all did pieces on Nora, the piano-playing cat. (Amanda Rittenhouse, who wrote the original Inquirer article, you might be owed some royalties.) CBS 3 might’ve done a piece, but I didn’t catch it.

Now, I’m not one to critique people for taking story ideas from the Inquirer. I mean, how else would I have a job! But at least I cite and link them, eh? And the funny thing is that all the stations address the report by saying what a hit the clip of Nora the cat is on YouTube. This is true, of course, but the local news stations apparently only learned of it because of the Inquirer. (Or maybe Nora the cat sent out a press release. Or we have a big coincidence.)

There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s just kind of amusing. And it’s always kind of amusing to watch how the local news covers the same story. And that brings me to Philadelphia Will Do’s newest occasional feature: Local News Blender. What’s this gonna do? Just what it says: Take a bunch of local news reports, mix ‘em up and put ‘em all together. This first one is about Nora, the piano-playing cat.

If you’re wondering why the clips from Action News are so much longer, it’s because Matt O’Donnell filed a 25-minute report (approx.) about Nora. And, yes, I repeated some of the clips because they were awesome. The part at the end with Kerri-Lee Halkett and Rob Guarino: Also awesome.

Hope you enjoyed!

Tuesday: Piano-Playing Kitty Wows YouTubers, Journalists