Local news is crap everywhere, but when I was traveling heavily for work from 2006-2008, I noticed a distinct trend. You hear a constant drumbeat of pedophile stories in the red states and no so much elsewhere. When we lived in Orlando, I had cut down to catching local news once a week or so because the steady stream of pedophile paranoia was just too much for me. I became a regular local news watcher again when we moved to SF. The occasional pedophile stories on the channel I usually watch are just as breathless and crazy as anywhere, but they occur with about 1/10th the frequency as in Orlando, Atlanta, Houston, Oklahoma City, and other red state cities I frequented in my work travels.