Local TV News Faces An Iceberg In ’25. Here’s How To Steer Clear Of It

Editor’s note: This marks the debut of a new column, Reinventing the News, by veteran local TV news executive Sean McLaughlin. Most recently, he was SVP, local news, for the E.W. Scripps Co.

Sean McLaughlin

Little did I know I had landed on the most controversial slide in my presentation. I was in a meeting with 14 news directors from across the country in January of 2015 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The meeting agenda was about the need to transform local news operations, and the slide was the final one: “Which one are we?”

The image featured two logos: Netflix and Blockbuster Video. I was adamant that local news wasn’t heading down the right path and was surprised I didn’t see heads nodding in agreement. The comparison to our business seemed obvious to me: Local news was on a collision course with technology and changing consumer habits, just like others before us. Some thrived. Others died. What would our path be? Evolve and thrive, or stubbornly cling to the past and die a slow death?

Many newsroom leaders were largely in denial then and that’s still the case to a large degree today, although the widening cracks in the health of our industry are becoming harder to blow off.

The iceberg everyone now sees is 2025, but nobody has any confidence in how to navigate it. In the nine years since that meeting in Cincinnati, more challenges than ever have clouded the future of the business I love and to which I have devoted the last 30 years. There are more newscasts, more stations, more ownership consolidation, more platforms and more audience fragmentation, but at the same time smaller ratings, smaller staffs, accelerating cord-cutting and an advertiser shift away from legacy media.

It’s all coming to a head, and even the most ardent supporters of the way it’s always been will be dragged kicking and screaming into a new reality or be left behind. This won’t be in the next decade. It will be next year.

All of this has culminated in what I see as the biggest challenge facing local news as an institution: People no longer see its value. Can we blame them? While most people use and access content, including local news, completely differently than they did 20 or even 10 years ago, you can’t say the same about the products we make or the approaches we take.

As I racked up frequent flier miles over the last 10 years, waking up in different communities day after day, one thing was hard to miss: the news looks the same everywhere. An inauthentic-seeming man and woman sit at a desk, reading stories written by other people and leaning into those about crime. Meanwhile, live reporters stand in the dark talking about something that happened 36 hours ago. You know where I’m going here.

Is it any wonder few people have passion or connection to the work we are doing? Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of blame to go around, and I am not suggesting people don’t work hard. It’s the opposite in fact: People are working harder than ever. When the hurricane bears down or the tornado hits or when COVID upended life for all of us, local news is at its best. We instantly become relevant again and ratings surge. In community recovery, we lead the charge.

On a day-in day-out basis however, it is a different story. Research shows the same complaints: I knew that already, it’s too negative and depressing, or it just flat out isn’t relevant. As doom and gloom as all of this sounds, there are things we can do to restore that value, but time is running short.

If we’re going to get serious about fixing the foundation of local news, we have to start with leadership. This means general managers and news directors shouldn’t just be tolerant of changing things up. They need to make it part of the culture and an expectation. Remember, what the boss talks about tends to get attention.

If there has ever been a time to meaningfully disrupt local news, it’s now. It’s not a time to be meek, subtle or incremental. If there is one thing that has been clear in every piece of audience research I’ve seen over the past few years, it’s that people don’t notice nuance. The only way local news changes is if local leaders call for it, explain the why and hold people accountable.

This is a major shift. It isn’t a one-and-done staff meeting. It’s a call to action and a daily focus, an unwavering obsession. The choice lays in the decisions of station and newsroom leaders: They can lay in the world of the past and get left behind or steer news operations in a bold new direction that matches up with what modern day news consumers want.

This can seem overwhelming, but you can start with an honest assessment of the product and the stories generated by your newsroom. Do they accurately reflect what’s happening in your community? If not, specifically where are you off and what is the plan to fix it? How are you tracking progress and who is accountable?

To get at this, you need feedback loops with your community. Some combination of audience research and community advisory boards are great places to start. Too often, we make the mistake of relying on a small community of like-minded people, ignore other parts of the community (different ethnicities, lower-income people, people in rural areas, to name a few). Research I’ve seen both in my time at E.W. Scripps and on the RTDNA board have shown how this lack of inclusion is breeding mistrust. Loss of trust is the fire that rages in many communities at a time we need it the most.

Developing an editorial game plan, coverage systems and approaches to critiquing and fixing will begin the process of rejuvenating what audiences see as tired and predictable products. Vision matters deeply. So does defining what success looks like. In 2024, success cannot be determined by Nielsen ratings. Product audits need equal or greater attention. To lead meaningful change, discussion of the product specifics, daily, is a must, along with how they met or fell short of the broader strategy.

Lastly, we need to create cultures inside our newsrooms where people are comfortable speaking up about coverage decisions and approaches to stories. Too many decisions are made inside the proverbial newsroom leadership vacuum. Everyone who works inside a local newsroom needs to have a voice, and to use it to make the content more interesting, valuable and reflective of the communities we serve.

Editorial meetings should serve as the platform of discussing key stories of the day, approaches to coverage and storytelling. They’re also a great place to celebrate successes. Take a few minutes to share the experience of watching the best piece of journalism done by your newsroom the day before. It helps people understand what the vision is and the plan to achieve success.

General managers should pop into the meeting occasionally if they don’t already. What is being discussed? Strategy and content value, or logistics? If the editorial meeting isn’t on point, the product won’t be either.

Time is short and the road ahead is rough, but it’s time to take on the changes that need to be made in local news. If you don’t want to take my word for it, look over ratings data and project out five years. What do you see?