Local TV News Project 1999
For all the "I-Team" graphics and driving music, enterprise reporting — the serious, proactive journalism that local TV so heavily promotes — is dropping precipitously.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
What makes something a story in campaign coverage? Apparently, the decisions of reporters, editors, correspondents and producers are the main answer. Fully 54% of all stories were initiated not by events outside but within the newsroom in the form of analytical or enterprise stories. The most common of these was to do analysis stories, which […]
Issues Edge For Gore Gore not only has improved his image, he holds a commanding lead over Bush as the candidate best able to handle most major policy issues. The vice president out-polls Bush on nine of 15 issues tested. The biggest gaps come on traditional Democratic issues, such as improving conditions for minority groups […]
Cynicism Waning Americans are less cynical about politics than they were five years ago. More people now say that they can influence the political process, and fewer people see their elected officials as inattentive to their needs. Almost three-quarters (73%) agree that voting gives them some say in how the government runs things a […]
By Chris Galdieri Local news may not really look the same everywhere, but newscasts often make the same mistakes. Local news experts and project researchers looked at some of the more in-depth pieces in the study and found that even many of them fell prey to some chronic bad habits. Here is a catalogue of […]
In the course of two weeks, the study didn’t find many stories that would win awards. But stations demonstrated a variety of good ideas that local TV newscasters and project researchers found worth noting and emulating. Here are seven storytelling approaches that worked and why: Let People Talk – Local TV reporters often get in […]
China’s Image Though few Americans paid very close attention to President Clinton’s trip to China, significantly more Americans see China moving in the direction of democracy and capitalism today than did so before Clinton’s June visit. Fully 35% of the public thinks that China’s government is “becoming more democratic” and “allowing more freedoms”; only 26% […]
Budget Agreement Clearly, Bill Clinton’s continued high ratings, despite Whitewater and the DNC fund raising scandal, seem more tied to a reduction in economic anxiety than to success with the budget. News interest in the budget debate once again edged down at the very time the President and Republican leaders had come to their historic […]