2004 Annual Report - Local TV Content Analysis

Story Length

Another characteristic of local television news is that the stories are short. In the study:

• Four in ten stories (42 percent) were under 30 seconds.

• Only three in ten (31 percent) were more than a minute long.

This brevity may help stations cover a lot of news, but it tends to reinforce the sense of superficiality and lack of real connection to people. Faced with competition from all-news cable and the need to "grab the eyeballs" of people who have been watching lead-in entertainment programming, local newsrooms often appear to opt for immediacy over storytelling. Stations tend to emphasize this approach somewhat more in late news, following prime time, than in early news, at 5:30 or 6 p.m. When correlated with viewership trends, the findings suggest that airing more short stories may be unwise for stations trying to build viewer loyalty. In each year of the study, stations with better measures of commercial success (defined as their ability to attract or retain audience) tended to do fewer very short stories and more long stories. The problem is, of course, finding the right mix. A station that did only long stories, in a 22-minute newscast that includes sports and weather, would not cover much of the community.

Local vs. National

Local television news is also predominantly local. Three quarters of the stories (76 percent) were local and the balance were national or international.

One might think that this is, in part, because the charge of local television news is to be local. And it is. But that mandate is often tossed aside for reasons that belie local values. For instance, wildfires in California, which are highly visual, tended to lead local newscasts in Washington, D.C., even though they were far away. But other major national stories, such as economic news or politics, might never lead local newscasts.

Enterprise in Local News

The other characteristic of local television news is that it tends to react to events rather than seek out the news, increasingly so. The study also coded every story studied according to a hierarchy of enterprise. At the top were those stories labeled by the station as investigative, followed by non-investigative series, followed by tough on-camera interviews. At the bottom were video press releases put on the air. Sending an on-camera reporter to an event was scored higher on the enterprise ladder than just sending a camera. The data showed a growing reliance on stories that did not involve having a correspondent cover a story.

In the first year of the PEJ study, for instance, 14 percent of stories were feeds from somewhere else. In 2002, the fifth year of the study, the use of feed material had risen to 23 percent. Similarly, in the first year of the study, 9 percent of stories were prearranged events, such as press conferences, in which the station sent a camera but had no on-camera correspondent. By the fifth year, that, too, had risen, to 29 percent of all stories.

Also:

• One in five stories (21 percent) involved stations responding to events such as traffic accidents or robberies.

• And fewer than one in ten stories (7 percent) were investigative stories, non-investigative series or included substantive on-camera interviews.

Why is this the case? One reason, interviews in newsrooms suggest, is the sense that yellow police tape and flashing lights make for good television. But, to the contrary, studies correlating viewership trends to story lineup choices suggest that leading newscasts with such stories does not build viewership.

Enterprise in Local TV News Stories

Form of Enterprise	Percent of Stories
Coverage of "daybook" events with reporter present	26%
Coverage of "daybook" events with no reporter on camera	22
Wire/feed stories and stories attributed to another news source	22
Coverage of spontaneous events	21
High-level enterprise (e.g., investigations, news series, and tough interviews)	7
Other	3

Source: PEJ Local TV News Project.
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.

One-Sidedness in Local News

The study also examined the balance of sourcing by first asking whether the story involved a controversy or dispute. "The school board approved a new bond issue today," may be presented as fact. Whether or not all the citizens whose tax bills may be affected by the decision agree with the new bond is a matter that is probably in dispute. In stories involving such disputes, did the reporting involve a mix of viewpoints, tell mostly just one side, or exclusively one side?³

The study consistently found a distinct one-sidedness to controversial stories. Indeed, in stories that involved some controversy, 60 percent of the stories told mostly or only one side. Another 40 percent contained a clear mix of opinions. This was true every year of the study, and though there were differences each year, no pattern emerged to suggest that this was an issue of resources or people being increasingly pressed for time.

Balance of Viewpoints in Controversial Local TV News Stories

Story Viewpoint	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	Total
All one opinion	43%	55%	46%	50%	43%	47%
Mostly one opinion	12	16	9	13	11	13
Mix of opinions	45	29	44	38	45	40

Source: PEJ Local TV News Project
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.