Exactly. Local news is generally garbage and that has nothing to do with political bias or journalistic effort and everything to do with profitability. Per screen-minute, weather is probably the cheapest to create and generates the most revenue. Get you all riled up, get you to share, get you to engage with their content, that's the aim.

If it was about real journalism the investigative reporting would happen year round and not just during sweeps months, but that's when they have to invest to see the highest return on their rate cards.