Leonard Downie Jr. and Michael Schudson, in their 2009 “Reconstruction of American Journalism” report for the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, recommended that “Public radio and television should be substantially reoriented to provide significant local news reporting in every community served by public stations and their websites.”
Likewise, New America Foundation President Steve Coll, writing in CJR’s November/December 2010 issue, proposed channeling spectrum user fees collected from commercial broadcasters to a revamped CPB, to be used to beef up reporting operations, particularly the local capacity, of public television and radio.
And in a December 2010 Knight Commission white paper, “Rethinking Public Media: More Local, More Inclusive, More Interactive,” Barbara Cochran, a former vice president of news at NPR, called on public broadcasters to move faster into localism and take bigger steps to reform infrastructure if they want to maintain their claim on government investment.
Radio, which is admittedly far cheaper than television, has been able to cobble together innovative projects attempting to address the need for more local content. NPR’s new Impact of Government project, funded by a large initial grant from the Open Society Foundations, is attempting to place a total of one hundred journalists at NPR stations in all fifty states, to report on how state government actions play out over time. (NPR’s then-Ombudsman Alicia Shepard raised ethical questions in May about that grant, given the foundation’s well-known left-leaning funder, financier George Soros; his Open Society Institute has supported CJR.) The Argo Project, another NPR venture backed by the Knight Foundation, is training select local stations in how to expand local news programming in niche areas. CPB last year pledged $7.5 million for seven regional public radio and TV reporting collaborations.
PBS has been comparatively slow to offer help to stations. Instead, in 2009, on the advice of an outside consultant, it began developing pbsnews.org, a “news navigator” aggregation site which some saw as competition to the newly beefed up NewsHour website. But in March, PBS pulled the plug on the aggregation site. “I don’t have the money right now to take it to the next step and I’m not going to half-launch something,” Kerger says.
PBS is now moving some of the money and technology earmarked for the website into technical resources and staff training to help its stations move more deeply into local journalism.
Some Successes
Against this backdrop, a few public television stations are trying to break the mold. In St. Louis, KETC-TV offered housing to the St. Louis Beacon, an online investigative newsroom formed in 2008 after steep layoffs at the local Post-Dispatch newspaper; the two have since collaborated notably on reports on the home mortgage crisis.
In Chicago, WTTW and the NewsHour just received an innovative, one-year, $250,000 grant from the Joyce Foundation that seeks to bolster the local/national model. Equal sums of $75,000 will fund national arts coverage on the NewsHour, and local reporting on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, whose own ratings have soared in the past year. The remainder will pay for stories produced by the twelve-person Chicago Tonight news staff, which will air on the NewsHour, on issues of national importance from the Midwest.
San Francisco’s KQED merged its television and radio news services into a single operation last summer and added an online site, KQEDnews.org. With an increase of $1 million to its $14 million annual news and public affairs budget—more than 25 percent of its annual spending—KQED increased its local news staff by more than 10 percent and tripled local radio newscasts.
The key to finding the money, KQED chief Boland says, is that “you’ve got to have a radio station; that really gives you critical mass. You’ve got to work across platforms and merge your resources. And then you need to partner outside the building.”
FYI: KQED's second "baby Frontline" - a look at the state-federal divide over medical marijuana called Republic of Cannabis airs tonight on television and can be seen right now on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bFUASotNXk. We'll also be doing a live chat on Twitter with CIR at 7pm PST tonight - follow #capot to check it out.
#1 Posted by Ian Hill at KQED News, CJR on Fri 8 Jul 2011 at 11:25 AM
This is a fine article but may leave a few false impressions. For one thing, I wouldn't use the word "indifferent" to describe the local news aspirations of local Public TV stations. And, the data is rather thin (citing what the FCC used, 68% of stations did no local news over a three week period. How vague is that?). My survey of public TV stations (all but 20), shows that 90% are committed to local production of news and public affairs. This varies, of course, in their on-air activities. But, for example, 68% were producing local documentaries! So Tom Rosenstiel is right when he questions the expectations we place on local Public TV stations. I'm not saying they shouldn't do more -- they should -- and most would if they could.
Send me a note if you want more data from the MVM/PRNDI 2010 survey -- mmarcotte (at) stanford (dot) edu
#2 Posted by Michael Marcotte, CJR on Fri 8 Jul 2011 at 05:48 PM
So it has come to this: KQED, the station that, decades ago, pioneered local news on public television with “Newsroom” now is reduced to bragging about getting a second locally- produced documentary on the air. I mean no disrespect to the excellent journalists trying to do the best they can with limited resources and often indifferent or hostile management, but that confirms everything in this story, and then some.
A long time ago, I was a reporter for local public radio and television for eight years and I followed it closely thereafter. The heart of the problem is a management culture in local public television that combines the ego of Hollywood with the politics of academia. With some notable and noble exceptions, the big-city station managers tend to see serving the local community as a drag on their ambitions to produce national programming; smaller stations often don’t even try.
That’s why there is no more Newsroom at KQED, no more 51st State at WNET, and no more Ten O’Clock News at WGBH (I worked briefly for that program at WBGH’s little sister station in Springfield.)
But at least in New Jersey, so badly served by New York and Philadelphia stations, there is an excellent fully field produced nightly news program that focuses on serious coverage of state issues and - oh, never mind. After 33 years, New Jersey Network News was canceled on June 30, just about the time this story was published.
Richard Wexler
Alexandria VA
#3 Posted by Richard Wexler, CJR on Sat 9 Jul 2011 at 03:49 PM
One thing mentioned but not really discussed in piece is the cost to staff and produce a quality daily local news show, especially one that is interesting, informative, and watchable. It's not cheap. When you add controversy to the mix,
and holding accountable local officials, businesses, institutions, etc. is bound to become controversial if you are truly doing news, then coming up with a sustainable "business" model is pretty daunting.
#4 Posted by michael fields, CJR on Mon 11 Jul 2011 at 07:00 PM
Lee Bollinger offers an interesting proposal—to create an American World (News) Service to absorb and supersede NPR, PBS, and the Voice of America. In theoretical terms it has much to recommend it. We are pitifully far behind quite a few countries in such offerings.
World news in the San Francisco Bay Area provides a slightly different profile from that he gives. In my Silicon Valley neighborhood there is a significant reluctance to subscribe to cable (poor reception in some locales). An incidental benefit is that broader news and foreign-language offerings are available on digital TV, which has increased the number of public channels from three to ten over the past two years.
KCSM (San Mateo) holds the strongest hand for (non-US) world services. In addition to the BBC (recently forced to contract its world service) and PBS, its evening offerings also include Deutsche Welle (the go-to place for the Euro crisis), NHK World News (riveting coverage of the Sendai earthquake and its aftermath; excellent Pan-Asian review on Thursdays), Al Jazeera (on the spot coverage of the Arab spring), and Russia Today (nothing topical of note) on weekdays. A local commercial channel carries CCTV and Xinhua News.
Given the will of Congress and the well publicized collapse of foreign-language teaching in many US institutions of higher learning, it is hard to see how the US could marshal the resources to mount a competitive world service in the foreseeable future. The percentage of funding that PBS receives from government resources is miniscule. One would need to start from scratch. NPR gives a whole different slant to the news and sustains a much broader array of one-off features capturing real life in America.
What is more conspicuously missing in the Bay Area (and much of the rest of the US) is coverage of local and state government news of any merit. (Highest marks for state coverage go to the San Jose Mercury News, but it is forced to pick its battles carefully.) Sound-bite TV journalism, given its obsessions with police blotters, gay rights, and Presidential sweepstakes, robs us of any knowledge of budgetary, legislative, educational, and environmental issues in Sacramento and in our local communities. The collapse of in-depth reporting, and of newspaper reading as a daily habit of the educated, doom us to poorly drafted, self-serving legislation at every level of government. Were I in a position to choose between a US-branded world service and beefed-up state and local coverage, I would quickly opt for the latter.
#5 Posted by Eleanor Field, CJR on Tue 19 Jul 2011 at 04:44 PM
Wow. What a thoughtful piece of journalism...plus the insightful and thoughtful responses. May I add some thoughts, as well?
Put together a few good leaders with the will, passion, determination and wisdom to create a balanced, informative and audience admired news service; it is a worthwhile goal that can be achieved.
Just for starters, imagine the existing talent base in local public television and radio stations, local news papers, local talk radio news services, schools of journalism, corporate communications networks, etc. Take all of these resources, add a few additional persons, leverage in chunks from national program series -- and guess what -- people will start tuning in and local and national businesses and foundations will step up with underwriting.
Why will there be an audience? Because the information will be relevant to the local viewer. The news is not someone else's issue, it's information relevant to the local viewer.
In every state or region, there is a dominant public broadcasting presence. Let that station be the "anchor" that sends and receives from surrounding stations. Share resources. Eliminate redundancy and use those funds to grow content.
Internet competition? Bring it on. Be a part of it. It's just another screen for delivery. It's another delivery service. It's just one more opportunity to deliver meaningful information.
Please, let's get past being too timid to risk confrontation or displeasure from -- underwriters, academic boards, politicians, and even some viewers.
Bold programming decisions do get rewarded if the products are consistently fair, balanced over time, and properly presented.
People do want to know what's going on around them. This is the foundation, the knowledge base from which we all make daily decisions that affect us, our families and our community.
I once had the pleasure of managing two public television stations. During my tenor, the Watergate hearings came onto the scene. We ran them in prime time -- against the wishes of several board members and underwriters. It was the right thing to do. The daytime working public wanted access. We gave it to them in prime time. The public praised us with individual viewing and contributions. Our audience ballooned!
Finally, put a lot of decision power in the hands of bright, eager young professionals and get out of the way. They don't know failure, don't wish to fail, and will bring currency in technology, relationships, information relevancy and passion to the task. They have the energy and the will to win.
A conclusion to not pursue the prospect of public broadcasting achieving public support for journalism leadership and admiration equal or superior to the current support for the children's programming is -- a decision to go out of business.
#6 Posted by Jack Caldwell, CJR on Tue 2 Aug 2011 at 03:54 PM
When I first got a TV in 1959 or 1950, Louis Lyons, the curator of the Neiman Fellowships at Harvard, did a half hour live broadcast of news and his far-out opinions on WGBH.
Lyons lacked sex-appeal, his programs were monotonous sing-songs, but they were the best newscasts I ever heard.
This was at a time when the Boston Herald-Traveler moved out of downtown and its publisher tried to bribe a member of the Federal Communications Commission so the H-T could buy WHDH-TV. Only the Globe and the Record could have reported the scandal, but only Lyons did.
#7 Posted by Stephen G. Esrati, CJR on Tue 9 Aug 2011 at 11:06 AM