Jump to content
TTL News Bot

What Happened To Local Journalism?

Recommended Posts

I realize there’s less press releases put out in the weekend, but the first 10 minutes of tonight’s “local” news on WETM was a replay of last nights NBC Nightly News.

Good grief. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 minutes ago, Chris said:

Unfortunately that ship has sailed.

Hate to be a skeptic...but.....but....I'm a little skeptical

You got some kind of itch, that always seems to come back.

image.png.ebb39754a5450764b4cc156b0823a60f.png

I’m sure not going to try to instigate you into bringing it back...because it's undoubtedly %1000 better for your mental health and stress levels to be done with it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
11 hours ago, MsKreed said:

You got some kind of itch, that always seems to come back

You’re not wrong 😉But I also know I can only lead a horse to water so many times. It’s someone else’s turn, and if they want to buy a domain with pre-made social media audience, I’m open to offers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Stuff like this sure won't encourage people to pursue journalism: 

 

Quote

 

Less than a day after asking for the public’s help in identifying a suspect in the stabbing death of Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter Jeff German, police served a search warrant Wednesday at the home of Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles.

The search marked a stunning development in the police investigation because it indicated for the first time that the killing might be related to German’s work exposing public wrongdoing. German’s investigation of Telles this year contributed to the Democrat’s primary election loss, and German was working on a potential follow-up story about Telles the week he was killed.

 

Source

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I see ithaca.com isn't really running stories out of Spencer, Van-Etten and Candor anymore. It makes me wonder if The Random Harvest paper they had for  over there is done as well.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Some real hard hitting news on the 6 o’clock lately:

-how to prepare for hunting season

-how to prepare for winter

-how to wash your bedsheets during glue season.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Chris said:

Some real hard hitting news on the 6 o’clock lately:

-how to prepare for hunting season

-how to prepare for winter

-how to wash your bedsheets during glue season.

With bits and pieces of yesterdays or the previous days newscast thrown in for a filler !

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Chris said:

Some real hard hitting news on the 6 o’clock lately:

-how to wash your bedsheets during glue season.

Huh??

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, Chris said:

LOL “flu” season… stupid autocorrect 

Seriously I was scratching my head on that one.  LOL

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

11 minutes of hurricane coverage, one story out of Corning, and then weather tonight.

Hey WETM, you guys do know the NBC Nightly News is on after you, and they’ll do the national news, right? 

  • Haha 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I removed all the posts about the Super Bowl, including my own, to keep this more on topic. Initially I tried moving them to the Super Bowl thread, but it was all screwed up. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have to give credit to Nick Dubina over at WETM news. I've read a few of his reports and he seems to ask good follow up questions making for a more informative report. 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Public radio can help solve the local news crisis – but that would require expanding staff and coverage

file-20230321-1069-lcafsn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-
Can public radio fill the hole left by the decline of local news outlets? Talaj/iStock / Getty Images Plus
Thomas E. Patterson, Harvard Kennedy School

Since 2005, more than 2,500 local newspapers, most of them weeklies, have closed, with more closures on the way.

Responses to the decline have ranged from luring billionaires to buy local dailies to encouraging digital startups. But the number of interested billionaires is limited, and many digital startups have struggled to generate the revenue and audience needed to survive.

The local news crisis is more than a problem of shuttered newsrooms and laid-off journalists. It’s also a democracy crisis. Communities that have lost their newspaper have seen a decline in voting rates, the sense of solidarity among community members, awareness of local affairs and government responsiveness.

Largely overlooked in the effort to save local news are the nation’s local public radio stations.

Among the reasons for that oversight is that radio operates in a crowded space. Unlike a local daily newspaper, which largely has the print market to itself, local public radio stations face competition from other stations. The widely held perception that public radio caters to the interests of people with higher income and education may also have kept it largely out of the conversation.

But as a scholar who studies media, I believe that local public radio should be part of the conversation about saving local news.

A newspaper called
Since 2005, more than 2,500 local newspapers have closed. Don Farrell/Digital Vision/Getty Images

Advantages are trust, low cost and reach

There are reasons to believe that public radio can help fill the local news gap.

Trust in public broadcasting ranks above that of other major U.S. news outlets. Moreover, public radio production costs are relatively low – not as low as that of a digital startup, but far less than that of a newspaper or television station. And local public radio stations operate in every state and reach 98% of American homes, including those in news deserts – places that today no longer have a daily paper.

Finally, local public radio is no longer just radio. It has expanded into digital production and has the potential to expand further.

To assess local public radio’s potential for helping to fill the local information gap, I conducted an in-depth survey of National Public Radio’s 253 member stations.

The central finding of that study: Local public radio has a staffing problem. Stations have considerable potential but aren’t yet in a position to make it happen.

That’s not for lack of interest. Over 90% of the stations I surveyed said they want to play a larger role in meeting their community’s information needs. As one of our respondents said, “The need for the kind of journalism public media can provide grows more evident every day. The desire on the part of our newsrooms is strong.”

To take on a larger role, most stations would need to expand their undersized news staff.

Sixty percent of the local stations have 10 or fewer people on their news staff, and that’s by a generous definition of what constitutes staff. Respondents included in this count broadcast and digital reporters, editors, hosts, producers and others who contribute to local news and public affairs content in its various forms, as well as those who directly provide technical or other support to those staff members. In addition to full-time employees, stations were asked to include part-time employees and any students, interns or freelancers who contribute regularly.

The staffing problem is most acute in communities that have lost their newspaper or where local news gathering has been sharply cut back. Many of these communities were judged by the respondents to have a below-average income level, which limits the local station’s fundraising potential.

Although the staffing problem is more pronounced at stations in communities where local news is in short supply, staff size at nearly every station falls far short of even a moderate-sized daily newspaper.

The Des Moines Register, for example, has a daily circulation of 35,000 copies and a nearly 50-person newsroom – a staff larger than 95% of local public radio stations.

Limitations on potential

One consequence of the staffing problem is that local public radio is actually not all that “local.”

The survey found that in the 13-hour period from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, only about two hours of locally produced news programming was carried on the average station, some of it in the form of talk shows and some of it as repeat programming. For stations with a news staff of 10 or fewer people, the daily average of locally produced news – even when including repeat programming – is barely more than one hour.

This is only one indicator of the limitations of an undersized newsroom.

Stations with a news staff of 10 or fewer people, for example, were only half as likely as those with more than 20 to have a reporter routinely assigned to cover local government. Some stations are so short of staff that they do not do any original reporting, relying entirely on other outlets, such as the local newspaper, for the stories they air.

A small news staff also means it’s hard to create content for the web, as illustrated by stations’ websites. The stations with 10 or fewer people in their newsroom were only half as likely as those with a staff size of more than 10 to feature local news on their homepage. A local station’s website cannot become the “go-to” place for residents seeking local news on demand if the station fails to provide it.

Lawn signs in different colors advertising local candidates.
Who covers local political races if a town’s newspaper has gone under? AP Photo/Ryan J. Foley

The stakes for democracy

With more staff, local public radio stations could help fill the information gap created by the decline of local newspapers. They could afford to assign a reporter full time to cover local government bodies like city councils and school boards.

It would still be a challenge for stations in rural areas that include multiple communities, but that challenge is also one that newspapers in rural areas have always faced and have in the past found ways to manage.

With adequate staff, local stations could also make their programming truly “local,” which would broaden their audience appeal.

Programming created by NPR, PRX and other content providers accounts for much of the appeal of local stations. But it can be a handicap in areas where many potential listeners have values and interests that aren’t met by national programming and where the station offers little in the way of local coverage. As one respondent noted, stations must provide coverage “that reflects the entirety of their communities.”

How much new money would local stations require to expand their coverage? Based on our respondents’ estimates and a targeting of the funding for the communities most in need, roughly $150 million annually would be required.

Given that these communities tend also to be the ones in below-average income areas, the funding would have to come largely from outside sources. That won’t be easy, but it needs to get done. As the Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton noted, local news gives people the information they “need to run their communities and their lives.”

This story has been corrected to state the name of one of two content providers to public radio stations, PRX.The Conversation

Thomas E. Patterson, Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press, Harvard Kennedy School

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have to confess, my original plans for this endeavor did include either a radio/podcast section or video production to compliment and offer more of a multi-media look to this site. Thing is, it's very time consuming and the return in a steady readership barely exists. I would collaborate with someone on any of those ideas in an instant though. 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Str Gazette has announced some major changes to the way people will get their newspaper soon:

“The Star-Gazette will begin delivering the newspaper to subscribers via the United States Postal Service next month.

The local USPS will deliver the Star-Gazette at the same time as your mail service starting Monday, July 10. As the USPS does not deliver on Sundays, we will make every effort for you to receive your normal Sunday publication delivered on Saturday.”

See the rest here: https://www.stargazette.com/story/news/local/2023/06/03/elmira-star-gazette-united-states-postal-service-mail-delivery-july-2023/70274726007/?fbclid=IwAR1NLkJeFcBQ_TvoTRIGBHKNCAncdUICJw9Wr-P_qyI0iqegcnbKkDLuWzI#lig47hpbudgcl3qy64

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 hours ago, Chris said:

Str Gazette has announced some major changes to the way people will get their newspaper soon:

“The Star-Gazette will begin delivering the newspaper to subscribers via the United States Postal Service next month.

The local USPS will deliver the Star-Gazette at the same time as your mail service starting Monday, July 10. As the USPS does not deliver on Sundays, we will make every effort for you to receive your normal Sunday publication delivered on Saturday.”

See the rest here: https://www.stargazette.com/story/news/local/2023/06/03/elmira-star-gazette-united-states-postal-service-mail-delivery-july-2023/70274726007/?fbclid=IwAR1NLkJeFcBQ_TvoTRIGBHKNCAncdUICJw9Wr-P_qyI0iqegcnbKkDLuWzI#lig47hpbudgcl3qy64

Just,,,,wow.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I merged this with the existing thread pertaining to local media ( or the dwindling of ). 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
12 hours ago, LocalSportsGuy said:

Another nail in the coffin. Sad what has happened with the paper and couldn't make a move to a more digital platform. 

They're paywall for the digital version is pretty affordable.....except it lacks much real content just like the print version. 

 

Sadly, this isn’t terribly surprising to me....considering the Star-Gazette is almost exclusively National and State news that is gathered at least a day before. Or generic "regional" lifestyle (tourism and home/garden, etc) stories that might contain mildly interesting “magazine” type content – but no hard news about anything happening here. I bet the Binghamton and Ithaca Gannett papers have 98% of the same content. 

For local content, it rarely carries much more than obituaries and sports scores.  

And the majority of “news” articles for this area seem to be just a few transitional segue sentences stringing together reprints of Press Releases and public statements (as with the recent Arena/IDA news and the County Exec’s emergency order, etc).

Past archives (available at Steel Memorial Library and on newspapers.com) show multi-faceted in-depth reporting that was a result of “man on the beat” chasing down facts and sources. I’m not sure how many “local” reporters the paper has even had in recent years.

Edited by MsKreed

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...