Local Relevance Index

 

A maxim of journalism states that the value of news degrades with its distance from the reader or viewer. That’s because what happens elsewhere usually affects us less than what happens here.

 

Obviously some distant events have serious repercussions locally, such as a conflict between U.S. armed forces and those of another nation. Further, the Bay Area is home to many foreign nationals as well as American citizens with close ties to homelands in China, the Philippines, Mexico, Viet Nam and elsewhere.

 

News from beyond the Bay Area is an important component of good journalism, particularly as a global economy intertwines the fates of distant nations. However there are many sources for such news. Generally, the more local the focus, the fewer the news providers.

 

Thus. the primary task of local papers and stations is to serve local communities, to inform them about their immediate environment.

 

The three Bay Area stations affiliated with major networks (Channels 4 (NBC), 5 (CBS) and 7 (ABC) all broadcast network newscasts next to the local newscasts we sample. That leaves them free to concentrate on local news. For these stations, recycling network coverage of non-local news becomes inexpensive filler, except when they have updates of important breaking stories from afar.

 

 

 

 

The three newspapers and Channel 2, in contrast, have no national and international news segment provided along with the local news they contribute. We would expect them to provide a greater mix of non-local news.

 

 

 

How the indices were constructed

 

We measure the percentage of all stories that either take place in the nine-county Bay Area or have a direct relationship to the region’s citizens. Such directly related stories would include all stories affecting the entire state, especially those emanating from state government. Thus a story about a train wreck in Southern California would not be included (unless the story focused on stricken residents from the Bay Area), but a story about how Africanized bees are making their way north in the state, would. Weighted by space or time, stories are sorted into Bay Area/Bay Area-related and outside stories.

 

The grading standard for Channel 2 and the three newspapers is at left; at right is the standard for Channels 4, 5 and 7:

 

            Non-supplemented                                                      Supplemented