Local TV news gets a bad rap — the fuckup cousin of the media. While national network “correspondents” (never “reporters”) do standups in front of the White House, the local news guys are the ones with the flashing lights behind them, standing in front of ambulances and police cars at the scenes of fires and shootings. They’re at the perp walk for the sex-offender-of-the-week, shouting questions as the suspect is shoved in a police car. They’re in the middle of a snowstorm, getting splashed by cars, or interviewing people buying shovels and salt at Home Depot (as if no one has any of these things left over from last year).
There they are, sitting on a set that looks like a garishly low-rent parody of their better-funded network cousins, or on the morning show, between plastic plants in easy chairs donated by the neighborhood furniture store (“promotional consideration provided by”), getting peed on by pets up for adoption at the local shelter.
Whole YouTube clips are devoted to local news screwups — so many, they’re actually broken out by year.
So you might be tempted to ask: why does anyone still watch these guys, especially when there are episodes of “Orange is the New Black” to binge-watch on Netflix? Local news outlets have reason to be concerned, especially about competition from online news sources. In 2012, local TV newscasts lost viewers in every key time slot — a more than 6% loss on average.
But those audiences bounced back the next year, according to the Pew Research Center — which found that “local TV remains a top news source for Americans, with almost three out of four U.S. adults (71%) watching local television news, compared with 65% viewing network newscasts and 38% cable news over the course of a month.” The American Press Institute found the following year that “… among the different types of TV news, more Americans (82 percent) turn to their local TV news stations either through the TV broadcast or online than any other type.”
Those of us who work in local TV news aren’t surprised by any of this, of course. We know the numbers boil down to one thing: trust.
The local TV reporter standing in front of a fire truck is also the reporter who knows the fire chief, who knows the neighborhood, and who can tell the story on a personal level. The local TV videographer at a school board meeting may not be covering the sexiest story in the world, but it’s a story that hits viewers where they live. That snowstorm the reporter is standing in may not mean much in the national scheme of things, but it means everything to the viewers wondering how they’ll get to work the next morning. And if we sometimes go to ridiculous lengths to keep things interesting — well, that’s part of the fun.
When a local news story takes on national dimensions, such as the Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown shootings, the national networks parachute in — but it’s the local folks who’ve expended the years of shoe leather that lay the groundwork. When a major national story breaks, it’s the tweets from the local news stations that clue in the networks and get them to mobilize.
This is why local TV news professionals put up with the insane hours and abysmally low pay. We know we won’t see the glamour or the accolades that come with a job at a network (although Lord knows many of us would jump at the chance if we got it) but at ground level, where you can make a difference in people’s lives and see it on their faces, there’s no better place to be.
The News Mines 