By EMILY JOSEPH

While watching the 6 a.m. news today, I noticed how much of the newscasts, particularly local newscasts, are filled with edited packaged stories. These are stories that are prepared in advance and are not time sensitive, including interviews, event features and pieces that require less in-depth journalism.

Essentially, they could air any time that week probably.

While these are nice additions to news shows and can lighten up a hard news day, should they actually be classified as “news”? At 6 a.m. I saw a story about the new Trader Joe’s opening and one about a new store at Disney where children can go for “Frozen” makeovers (like the characters from the movie “Frozen”).

Not only are these features very “fluffy,” but they seem to take up more time in a 30-minute newscast than hard news or breaking news stories. I understand and accept that the morning news shows (“Today,” “Good Morning America,” and so forth) are usually a combination of feature and hard news, but now that local news is following that path, I think enough is enough.

Some people only have 30 minutes in the morning to watch the news and I don’t think hearing about the new Trader Joe’s is at the top of their lists of concerns.