Study: Midwest newscasts devote elections little time Local TV news directors apparently don't think their viewers are very interested in coverage of the upcoming elections, at least in the Midwest. A University of Wisconsin NewsLab study released yesterday showed that local stations in nine major markets in the Midwest, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Milwaukee, showed an average of 36 seconds of election news in their 30-minute evening news broadcasts for a month starting Sept. 7. Not unexpectedly, advertising took up most of the 30-minute newscasts, at an average 10 minutes and seven seconds. Next was sports and weather...