Local News

Almost all the indicators for local TV are pointing down.

A new PEJ study investigates where news comes from in today’s rapidly changing media landscape. An examination of local media in Baltimore provides insight on how the U.S. media ecosystem works. What role do new media, blogs and specialty news sites play in the news cycle? Who is breaking news? Which reports advanced the story? The study answers these questions and more.

How popular was local television as a source for news in 2008? How did ratings for morning, evening and late night newscasts fare? These questions and more are answered in the Local TV chapter of the State of the News Media 2009 report.

Local television stations usually can’t wait for presidential election years.

One of the few sources of news that continues to be popular, local television news is nevertheless facing the challenges of new technology and new consumer lifestyles.

Local TV news, long America’s most popular information medium, is hardly proving immune to the revolution changing journalism.

A new study finds a proliferation of “citizen media” web sites that fit somewhere on the media spectrum between the street-corner soapbox and the local daily newspaper. While concluding that these grassroots outlets are successful at creating community conversations, the report on this emerging landscape also reveals that many are tenuous, shoestring operations.

Suddenly, local ownership of newspapers is making something of a comeback. Since the breakup of Knight Ridder last year, and the threat of more cutbacks in newsrooms, private ownership groups and individuals have emerged in cities from Boston to Los Angeles wanting to buy the local paper. Who are they? A rundown.

in our fifth roundtable discussion on the future of the news media, industry analysts discuss how local TV news can remain relevant and whether it needs to reinvest more profit back into the product.

The city’s two dailies have been sold to a group of local businessmen for $562 million. PEJ offers a look at the deal’s history, players and impact.