2005 Annual Report - Local TV Content Analysis

The kind of stories the "hook and hold" approach emphasizes are easy to find and easy to promote. For newsrooms, that has created an economic incentive that trumps more traditional journalistic values like significance and relevance. The result is a predisposition to cover events that can be reported with less effort.

For example, two-thirds of all local stories in our five-year study of local TV are initially broadcast to newsrooms on police and fire scanners, triggered by information from press releases, meeting agendas or daybook events that are literally dropped in the laps of assignment editors, or picked up from other local news outlets.

And as local stations cover more stories that are easy to find and report, they are also airing significantly more content that requires no local newsgathering whatsoever. This so-called feed material, from outside sources such as a network, affiliate cooperative, or independent syndicator, accounts for almost a quarter of all stories on local news programs.

Third-Party Footage on Local TV News

1998 to 2002

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Source: PEJ Local TV News Project, 1998-2002

Not only is feed material relatively cheap and plentiful, it complements the "hook and hold" approach. Newscast producers monitor the daily satellite feeds, cherry-picking eye-catching video that is highly "teasible" or can be used to fill in the blanks in the "hook and hold" template. If a producer wants to end the newscast on a light note and has no local "happy news," he or she simply pulls some feed footage of a newborn Panda cub at a faraway zoo.

Except for a relatively small core of stories that exhibit the highest levels of reportorial effort, stations have opted for efficiency over quality. Coverage of stories that were more labor-intensive for newsrooms declined between 1998 and 2002. The use of material requiring less manpower increased.

The Disappearing Reporter

Newsroom dependence on the "hook and hold" template to structure newscasts coincides with another trend - the disappearing local TV reporter.

Over the five years of the Project's study, the percentage of stories typically presented by reporters dropped by about a third, from 62% of the total in 1998 to 43% in 2002. At the same time, all other content, including feed stories, daybook news covered without a reporter, and anchor "tell" stories with no tape footage, increased from 38% to 57%.

Stories with On-Air Reporters

1998 to 2002

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Source: PEJ Local TV News Project, 1998-2002

For many topics, the PEJ five-year study found that a reporter's appearance in a story is a predictor of quality. For example, a story about a pre-arranged event in which a reporter appears, whether it is to ask a question in a short interview clip or narrate a longer reporter package, is significantly more likely than a story about a pre-arranged event that doesn't feature a reporter to contain a mix of opinions about a subject rather than just one point of view, PEJ data show.⁹ That is true whether the story is about crime, politics or social issues. The content analysis this year of network and cable TV reporting finds a similar connection between packages and the depth of reporting. (See Cable TV Content Analysis and Network TV Content Analysis.)

The decline in reporter appearances could indicate newsrooms are depending more on photographers assigned to an event to ask questions and take notes in addition to making pictures. It could also mean reporters are doing more assignments every day, writing anchor voiceovers for some stories and appearing on camera in others. In fact, both things may be happening simultaneously. One clue may be found in the annual news director surveys conducted as part of the study. Over five years, the number of stories covered by the average local TV reporter increased from 1.4 in 1998 to 1.8 in 2002, an increase of 28%.