Page 182 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Sabine Lang

The“successstory”thatiswrittenbycommerciallocaltelevisioninthe
United States remains unique. Today in the United States there are about
740 commercial local stations on air that use about 40 percent of their
own, that is, non-network programming, airtime for local news (Klite
et al. 1997, 102). Local news time has far surpassed national newscasts
on network outlets. While 67 percent of adults watch local news daily,
only 49 percent follow the national network news (Graber 1997, 326).
Even the distinction between local and national programs is blurring
as new video technologies and new transmission options have empow-
ered local networks to offer national news scaled down to local size
and to effectively localize national topics. The political establishment in
Washington, in response, has made use of the localized news markets
by providing sound bites for their respective local electorate on a regu-
lar basis. Preproduction of important policy events for local television,
which are often able to stress specific local angles of a topic, is now a
routine for the White House and for members of Congress (Kiolbassa
1997).
At the same time as this localization of political news frames takes
place, we see a downsizing of political news production. A comparison
betweennationalandlocalnewscastsintheUnitedStatesin1995showed
that “political news” in its narrow sense, defined as government affairs,
the economy, and social issues, accounted for only 62 to 69 percent of
local news, but accounted for 85 to 93 percent of national news (Graber
1997, 327). Sports, entertainment, and other nonstrictly political news
havegainedmuchhigherrelevanceinlocaltelevisioninrecentyears.This
tendency also translates into specific formats and styles. Commercial
local television in the United States communicates its agenda with em-
phasisonsensationalismandnegativity,therebycontributingtoitsimage
as less professional and an even more marketing and profit-driven news
delivery system than the national news (Kaniss 1991, 113–14; Kiolbassa
1997). “The need to appeal to a mass audience, the cult of personality,
the limited number of reporters and their reliance on routine channels of
information, the importance of dramatic video and sound bites, and the
element of timeliness, all lead to a distinctive definition of what is ‘local
news’” (Kaniss 1991, 113). Most importantly, the news is a substantial
source of income for local stations in the United States, generating on
average about 40 percent of a stations’ profit (Graber 1997, 326). The de-
pendence on advertising revenue increases the pressure on local stations
to keep up high viewer ratings and to generate as little controversial
political substance as possible in the local public sphere. Investigative

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