Analysis

Citizen audit of localness of local TV news

Barely half of local newscasts focus on local issues and events

By John McManus
Analysis by Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Posted July 21, 2004
Updated Aug. 11, 2004

A citizens' audit of local television newscasts prepared in advance of the Federal Communications Commission "localism" hearing today suggests that barely half the local news in four Western metropolitan areas is about the locality at all.

The survey also found:

• Most stories were under-sourced. The ratio of stories with two or fewer sources to those that could potentially go beyond "he said/she said" was 5 to 1.
• Stories focusing on simple events impacting relatively few in the community outnumber stories with broader newsworthiness 4 to 1.
• Two of three sources whom reporters interviewed on camera were male.
• European/Anglo Americans accounted for two of every three ethnically identifiable sources on camera, despite the extraordinary racial and ethnic diversity of the communities surveyed -- the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Salinas-Monterey and Honolulu.
• A third of the newscasts surveyed were devoted to stories on topics such as sports, celebrities and fender-benders that may be visual and entertaining, but do little to orient citizens to the world around them -- the purpose of socially responsible journalism.

Because the survey did not include a random sample of all major stations in the markets, nor were coders trained, the results represent a snapshot of local TV news through the eyes of ordinary viewers. The citizen audit is an exercise in personal judgment guided by a common questionnaire and instructions rather than social science. Other volunteers might have coded the newscasts somewhat differently.

The importance of localism

A core principle of socially responsible journalism is that the closer an event or issue comes to the viewers, the more likely it is to have a significant impact on their lives. Local news isn't always more consequential than international or national news, but it often is.

In this survey local news was broadly defined. All stories that took place in the station's metropolitan region were designated as local. In addition, stories that directly affected the region, such as statewide news from the state legislature, were also coded as local.

Because few of the stations surveyed employ reporters outside their own metro area and because most also carry network newscasts oriented to international and national news, local newscasts might be expected to focus heavily on issues and events within their home community.

The survey was conducted by volunteers who taped newscasts in their locality and evaluated them using scorecards provided by Grade the News. Twelve volunteers completed questionnaires assessing broadcasts at 11 stations.

The citizen audit was jointly sponsored by Media Alliance, the Department of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco and Grade the News.

What do you think? Discuss it in The Coffeehouse.

This site is supported and maintained by the Grade the News project team.

Feel free to disseminate, but please attribute and link to us.