Page 183 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Local Political Communication

reporting and longer news stories in particular fall by the wayside. Tele-
visionnewscastsgettheirpoliticalsubstanceprimarilyoutofnewspapers
and press releases from public officials and agencies. A recent study of
three local, economically vulnerable stations that were part of national
networks concludes that 75 percent of local news were direct offshoots
of press releases by local actors or newspaper reports. The stations inves-
tigated 20 percent independently, but on the basis of press declarations
and newspaper reports. And only 5 percent of the information conveyed
came through a television reporter’s initiative (Graber 1997, 332).
Yetthereisalsoincreasingevidencethatpointstotheshortsightedness
of such downsized and undercomplex news production. The Project for
Excellence in Journalism has recently studied nineteen local television
markets and came to the conclusion that the stations that emphasized
quality production, defined as less crime coverage, fewer gimmicks, and
more focus on local issues, actually built solid ratings (Rosenstiel et al.
2000; Lipschultz and Hilt 2002, 147). But it also costs more to produce
quality news. The study concludes that “a newscast should reflect its
entire community, cover a broad range of topics, focus on the signifi-
cant aspects of stories, be locally relevant, balance stories with multiple
points of view, and use authoritative sources (Rosenstiel et al. 2000, 87).
Lipschultz and Hilt argue in a 2002 study of crime and local television
news in the United States that this “lack of creativity on the part of many
newsrooms across the country, ironically, may be based on a false sense
of security–asense that the safest path is keeping the status quo model
developed during the 1970s” (Lipschultz and Hilt 2002, 147).
Keeping these contested features of local political television news in
mind, we can somewhat modify its success story in the United States:
What we see on the local television market since the 1970s is an increas-
ing interest in framing news locally – an interest that also is fueled by the
“distance-from-Washington-syndrome” that is engrained in American
political culture. Local television provides representation and recogni-
tion of such localized identities. However, it also seems as though local
commercial television in its persistent fight for audience quotas has for
the most part disengaged from complex portrayals of local politics and
from conveying to its audience a sense of place that goes far beyond con-
structions of fear and fun. While public criticism of local television news
is on the rise, only a few bold stations are trying to recast their identities.
Asaresult, a grassroots movement is reclaiming the idea of community
television of the 1970s and demanding a larger share of public access
television in local communities.

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