Journalism

Nexstar veteran Erica Hill-Rodriguez is tapped to lead news operations at KTTV and KCOP, succeeding Kris Knutsen.

NBC News and Meet the Press are launching County to County, a new project to cover the 2020 election from the vantage point of five key counties in swing states. Meet the Press moderator and political director Chuck Todd and reporters Vaughn Hillyard and Dasha Burns will provide coverage from Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, Kent County in Michigan, Beaver County in Pennsylvania, Miami-Dade County in Florida and Maricopa County in Arizona.

ABC Owned Television Stations have won the Innovator Award, the top honor in TVNewsCheck’s second annual Social Media Excellence Awards. KABC, the group’s Los Angeles station, was also recognized with the award in the Large Market Category.  This year’s awards will be presented at NewsTECHForum on Dec. 16 followed by a panel discussion with the winners moderated by Social News Desk’s Kim Wilson.

It marks the newest expansion of major market local news streaming services from CBS and features local news content produced by KPIX.

Joe Ferullo: “Modern media culture may be overheated and then some, but the House impeachment hearings prove once again that television is at heart a “cool” medium. So far, that’s good news for the Democrats. Critics of all stripes have pummeled the hearings for “lacking in pizzazz” and playing out like “a tepid bore.” But under the rules of certain kinds of television, that’s a good thing.”

How a new generation of digital storytellers is changing the rules at ABC’s O&Os. The Community Journalism Program embeds reporters in neighborhoods to provide a more nuanced view of community life than “breaking news” coverage allows.

New job posts on TVNewsCheck’s Media Job Center include an opening for a brand manager at a broadcast group’s headquarters, and a writer/producer for a station in the nation’s capital.

Emily Bell: Newsrooms often lack a strategy to cope with the new world of instant social media outrage.

News leaders from Hearst, the Associated Press and E.W. Scripps will share strategies for covering the contentious 2020 election season during the opening panel at TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum next month.

Fox-owned WTTG Washington is alone among the major affiliate stations in the Nation’s Capital not airing live coverage of the impeachment hearings just across town. But there is more to the story. WTTG and co-owned WDCA VP GM Patrick Paolini took a quick break Friday (Nov. 15), in the midst of the station’s coverage of the day-two hearing, to talk about that decision and the Fox’ O&O’s larger coverage strategy.

ABC News’ Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang hosted the annual awards ceremony produced for the Library of American Broadcasting Foundation by the International Radio & Television Society Foundation. Back row, l-r: Mark Pedowitz, Alfred C. Liggins III, Larry Patrick, Peter Dunn, Mark Richer. Front row, l-r: Julie Talbott, Lester Holt, Connie Chung, Paula Kerger. (Photo: Wendy Moger-Bross)

The first day of the impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump drew over 13 million total viewers across the broadcast and news networks combined. Fox News’s coverage from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. drew the highest total viewership of any network, averaging around 2.9 million sets of eyeballs. Of the broadcast nets, ABC was tops with 2 million total viewers watching its impeachment coverage between 9:50 am and 4 p.m.

Shareholders cleared the way Thursday for New Media Investment Group and USA Today owner Gannett to join forces in a deal that will create the largest U.S. media company by print circulation, and one that will also vie for the biggest online news audience nationwide. In separate votes, shareholders of each company approved New Media’s $1.13 billion acquisition of Gannett. The companies can now move forward to finalize the deal, which is expected to close Tuesday, Nov. 19.

The recently acquired Miami CW affiliate extends Scripps’ coverage in the key political battleground state of Florida to six stations.

For six hours, career diplomats George Kent and Bill Taylor sat before Congress and answered questions. But from the immediate media response, it was hard to shake the sense that the proceedings didn’t pierce partisan gridlock or pre-set opinions.

Pioneering TV journalists and newsroom leaders from NBC, ABC, Tegna, Dalet and Newsy will share how they’re creating fresh narrative thinking and incorporating emerging digital technologies to expand the boundaries of broadcast news reporting at TVNewsCheck’s seventh annual NewsTECHForum.

Cheese-moving became the go-to metaphor for change in the late 1990s when Spencer Johnson published the 96-page book Who Moved My Cheese. As journalism leaders, we have been talking about change for decades, but most of the disruption in television has been taking place in the margins. Is streaming technology the “seismic” change predicted by one industry observer? Is this change for real?

C-SPAN coverage of a ho-hum congressional hearing usually features three cameras — one head-on camera for the chair; one for the witness; and another side camera for the committee members. There will be no standard operating procedure come Wednesday morning, however. C-SPAN will have seven cameras around the hearing room — two cameras for the chair and other members; two cameras for either side; one witness camera; and two high and wide cameras for that panoramic look. The additional cameras will enable C-SPAN to “better capture the interaction among everybody” in the room.