Is It Time To Sideline The Local News Anchor?

Sean McLaughlin

I was getting irritated. I had been in a tight space inside a mobile home in a rural area outside Fort Myers, Fla., for almost two hours listening to a woman, probably in her 50s, complain about every aspect of local news. It was hot, humid and cluttered. And she was more than happy to share her misery.

She didn’t like the news. She didn’t like the people. She didn’t like the stories. She didn’t like anything. Then she threw out a comment that connected some dots for me: “Last week I watched the anchor on Facebook, and he was just a normal guy. Then you could tell the news was starting again on TV, because he…” then she started making robotic gestures and imitating what became known on these tours as “the voice.”

This was the summer of 2016. At this point, Facebook Live was an area of experimentation, and the trendy thing newsrooms were doing was having anchors engage with audiences on the platform during commercial breaks. These ended up generally being awful, but they did offer viewers something they hadn’t seen in a while — a small taste of authentic humanity from the people who deliver the news.

These in-home immersions were an approach to expand beyond the traditional research that had guided local news for decades. Instead of interviews over the phone for 20 minutes or an online survey, we got to know the people behind the demo in a much more intimate way, usually spending several hours with them in their homes.

We weren’t just talking about the news, but their life experiences, their challenges and their community. It helped develop a deeper understanding of the things that mattered to people. Many key findings came out of these studies, several centered around the role of the anchor. It’s a role that has earned its share of derision, perhaps best in the parody movie Anchorman.

What has become evident in these studies and others I’ve seen since is when it comes to news talent, people want the authenticity and grit of Main Street, Omaha, but instead feel as though they’re being served up the pomposity and privilege of Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons. There’s a lack of uniqueness, local knowledge and warmth. There’s a similarity of tone, look and style that creates a sense of fakeness. It’s time for a change, and this involves changing everything including the anchor job itself and the kind of people we hire into these roles.

To be clear, this didn’t just show up in one study; it has shown up in many. I challenged my research partners at Magid several years back, stressing that we needed to go deep on the issue. Was a quantifiable shift in consumers’ basic expectations of the anchor role really happening? The data has shown repeatedly indicated it was. Showing up, looking good and reading well wasn’t enough to cut it anymore for anchors.

This isn’t saying that many anchors aren’t busy or working hard day-in and day-out, but what was important in the 1980s or ’90s isn’t what is important to news consumers today. Time spent at Junior League luncheons and shooting promos is time that could be reallocated doing the things viewers see and value. And let’s be honest: The quick desk nap and elongated dinner breaks are alive and well in some local newsrooms. Those have to stop. Anchors need to work harder than ever to be relevant to news consumers today and stations need to work harder to get credit for every piece of work an anchor does.

So, how do we start to turn this ship? First and foremost, one key value is localism. People expect the local news anchor to have unique and deep knowledge of the communities on which they report the news. Back in the day, this was something that could easily be accomplished by creative newscast producing and a witty promo campaign. Not anymore. A fake can be spotted a mile away, and particularly in many non-transient Midwest communities, warming up to a new face takes time that our industry doesn’t have.

I would go so far to assert that deep local roots are now the single most important thing to look for in primary anchor candidates. This doesn’t make the hiring process a little harder. It makes it a lot harder.

Utilizing primary anchors in field reporting isn’t new. I remember watching great investigative reporting on WCCO by main anchor Don Shelby when I was growing up in Saint Paul, Minn. The president coming to town or a plane crash would also lead to local stations deploying the anchors to the field.

But the need is different in 2024. It’s no longer about special reports or huge breaking news coverage. There’s a frequency that’s needed, perhaps due to the infrequent way people consume our products. This means primary anchors turning stories from as little as two or three times per week to as often as every day. This doesn’t necessarily mean a full-blown package every day, but meaningful work from the field with consistency with a focus on connection and quality reporting that’s plainly visible to the causal news consumer.

The goal here isn’t to treat primary anchors the same as general assignment reporters. Even when they are reporting day-of news, these stories need to stand out and be featured prominently across all platforms. The way the stories are done is almost as important as the stories themselves. This is the opportunity to shift the narrative. Instead of the anchor image being almost entirely built around a sterile studio and a teleprompter, the image is now driven by community immersion, active listening and moments of genuine human interaction. A range of personality, knowledge and emotion can be captured through well-produced stories. Showcasing the anchor as both a seasoned journalist and a caring member of the community are equally important.

Systems will need to change to make this happen. Recognizing that primary anchors don’t have the time to do this entirely on their own, newsroom support will be important, especially at larger stations. It starts with the news director making it a daily priority, ensuring the stories are the right ones and the approach is strategized from the start.

The potential use of a field producer to help with setup, and possibly some of the more time-consuming journalistic legwork, helps, too. Your best photographer should be deployed to make these works of art that deliver on the content, the brand and the image of the modern-day working anchor.

Finally, you need a digital and social media guru with the simple goal of making these stories the most highly visible in the market. Digital gold can begin to reshape the relevance of your anchor and your news brand.

Not every anchor will be willing to do this. For some it’s about entitlement, or a sense of having “earned their way” into a job that no longer should exist in a 2024 newsroom. That will require station leadership to make tough decisions.

The math is clear going forward: There will be fewer local news anchors, perhaps dramatically so. Those anchors who remain — and who stations build around — will need to embody this approach, not the outdated version that makes audiences laugh in cheesy movies.

Veteran local TV news executive Sean McLaughlin most recently was SVP, local news, for the E.W. Scripps Co.