THE FUTURE OF LOCAL NEWS

February 2001
		WBBM-Chicago recently ended its experiment with no-frills, content-driven local news. Is news without fluff stories or flashy graphics a thing of the past? Three experts respond to your questions.

Forum introduction What can viewers do to improve local news quality? Why are there so many remote broadcasts on TV news? Should newspapers monitor local TV quality? Should Marin's broadcast have been given more time? What role should PBS stations play? When will broadcasters return to "broadcasting" rather than "narrow-casting"?     Online Special Changing Local News Feb. 7, 2001: Carol Marin and two analysts on the future of local news. May 24, 2000 A Chicago newscast chooses facts over fluff. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the media     Audience Research and Development CBS News The Project for Excellence in Journalism

David Fott of Las Vegas, Nevada asks: It was my pleasure to watch Ms. Marin on WSM-TV in Nashville during the 1970s. What can be done to encourage local newspapers to undertake regular monitoring of the quality of news broadcasts on local stations, as a way of establishing a sort of competition among the stations? Local Emmy Awards are not always given for the right reasons, you know. Carl Gottlieb responds: If you go the the PEJ Web site you'll see that we've been monitoring the quality of local TV news for three years. Just go to www.journalism.org and look at the Local TV News Study. While local papers monitor local TV, who will monitor the local print media?   Marty Haag responds: One impediment, I believe, is the quality of the TV critics in most newspapers. Few have ever been television journalists. They don’t understand how a television newsroom works, and they don’t care to learn. They would rather write about entertainment programming and go on junkets to the West Coast to talk to stars. Local news isn’t seen as a priority for most newspapers. Some like the one in Oklahoma live in the dark ages and think if they don’t mention TV it will go away.   Carol Marin responds: Unfortunately, the watchdogs of local news can be as problematic as the product being monitored. You suggest newspapers as a possibility but newspapers are guilty of many of the same excesses. More and more they are engaged in demographic targeting, deals with advertisers under the guise of news, focusing on celebrity news and less complex subjects. I'm not saying there are not good television critics writing for newspapers because there are some truly excellent columnists and critics, but the papers they work for have, in many cases, some of the same issues we battle in local television news. I've even had strong disagreements with the well-intended Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted by the Pew/Columbia group. I think their studies of local news are infused with so-called "civic journalism" values that I reject and too narrow and provincial a definition of what constitutes local news. In the last analysis, it's we in the newsroom who have to fight for the professional integrity of our product.