Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
By Marty Haag Not long ago I came across an internal station memorandum from a local TV news operation that said: “We are an oasis in a sea of change.” Perhaps that’s the problem. We don’t know what we are in local TV news anymore — even metaphorically. No question plagues television news executives more […]
Quality sells, but commitment — and viewership — continue to erode.
By Tom Dolan Reporter Jaime Garza of KCAL in Los Angeles positioned his live shot in El Cajon Pass with care. Not only was it a scene-setter for the 10 p.m. news, but it also helped to explain visually the story of the day and let you know tomorrow’s commute might be even worse in […]
Meet the 2000 Local TV News Project Team This study was conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a journalists’ group in Washington, D.C., affiliated with the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The scholar team that developed the methodology included Lee Ann Brady of Princeton Survey Research […]
Audience Retention One of the most striking findings this year had to do with audience retention. By finding ways to hold onto or build upon “lead-in audience,” stations have managed to justify ad rate increases even as audiences have decreased. Better journalism is the surest way not only to hold the audience you inherit but […]
Background Since the mid-1990s when the World Wide Web became a powerful part of America’s communications and information culture, there has been great concern that the nation’s racial minorities would be further disadvantaged because Internet access was not spreading as quickly in the African-American community as it was in the white community. Former Assistant Secretary […]
Our definition of quality is the same established by our design team of local TV news professionals three years ago. We stress the basics: A newscast should reflect its entire community, cover a broad range of topics, focus on the significant aspects of stories, be locally relevant, balance stories with multiple points of view, and […]
Washington, D.C. Panel E.J. Dionne, The Brookings Institution Andrew Kohut, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Michael Cromartie, The Evangelical Community in American Civic Life project, and the Ethics and Public Policy Center David Devlin-Foltz, The Public Role of Mainline Protestantism project, and the Aspen Institute Alan Mittleman, Center for Jewish Community […]
By Dan Rosenheim Some of our design team members screened shows from five stations that earned top scores for their individual stories and offered their subjective reactions. At first blush, the most striking characteristic of this year’s top-scoring newscasts may be how little they have in common. Some eschew crime; others thrive on it. Some […]
Los Angeles, California Panel E.J. Dionne, The Brookings Institution Melissa Rogers, Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs Cal Thomas, syndicated columnist Jim Wallis, Sojourner’s Magazine Steve Waldman, Beliefnet E.J. DIONNE, JR. Thank you all for coming. For me, this is a great reunion. An old and very dear friend of mine who teaches at USC, […]