Platforms Evolve, Local News Stays Relevant

Despite the emergence of huge high-tech possibilities — drones, virtual reality and the like — local TV news leaders say workflow systems that would allow their news teams to go back to doing their core jobs are No. 1 on their wish lists.

“We need to let our journalists be journalists, and let the technology let them be better reporters, and storytellers and question askers,” David Friend, CBS Television Stations SVP of news, said Monday.

Speaking at the TVNewsCheck and Sports Video Group NewsTECHForum in New York, Friend was one of five local broadcasters who discussed the issues facing local TV news — and the role technology plays in helping, or hurting, the industry.

Other station group news heads — Hearst’s Barb Maushard, Fox’s Sharri Berg, Tribune’s Bart Feder and Sinclair’s Scott Livingston — echoed Friend’s sentiments.

They said having workflow systems so efficient that they would free news staff up to focus on local broadcasters’ biggest asset — content — rather than the technical side of producing it for multiple platforms is key to maintaining the integrity, and therefore the viability, of local TV news.

“What we have to do is let our producers, our news directors, are teams focus on content and depth and what we’re really here for, “ Berg said.

Feder agreed, saying newsroom software should allow news teams to focus more on the product than the process of producing it. “We somehow need to relieve them of their responsibility of being heads down, coding a show, so they can be heads up and be producers,” he said.

It’s essential, however, that those workflow systems don’t wind up hurting the caliber of content, Feder added. “We have to create those efficiencies but at the same time not lose the quality and not lose the producers’ ability to produce newscasts people are going to want to watch.”

The importance of high-quality content was a recurrent theme throughout the panel discussion, which touched on topics ranging from the relevance of local TV, multiplatform content creation and distribution to incorporating user-generated content and social media into newscasts.

When it comes to technology, panelists said equipment that has bolstered the way reporters can gather and distribute news are the real game changers.

That is especially true for cellular bonded mobile transmission systems, which have allowed reporters to report from places they never could have gotten to with live trucks.

“LiveU and Dejero [mobile systems] have been way more transformative than drones will ever be,” Feder said.

And while digital media certainly has impacted the industry, it doesn’t necessarily detract from it, they said.

Feder, for example, said distributing news on digital platforms provides an opportunity for local broadcasters to add more depth and perspective to their on-air broadcasts.

“We are putting the journalism back into local newscasts,” he said.

In addition, digital platforms provide local broadcasters the chance to expand beyond their core product.  Fox O&O KSAZ Phoenix, for example, has launched a live news channel, Fox 10 News Now, on You Tube. In Pittsburgh, WTAE, Hearst’s ABC affiliate, runs an online lifestyle channel.

From the get-go, the news leaders affirmed their staunch support of the medium, even as the platforms on which it is delivered expand and change over time.

“I believe the concerns about our future are over-reported and overstated,” Maushard said, adding that she sees considers local news “to the people of our country.

“I think local news may still be among the only objective news operations that exist, and continue to be very important and personal for the people that it serves,” she said.

The other panelists backed that up, pointing to the fact that their products are growing online as well as on-air.

Maushard, for instance, said Hearst is expanding the hours of news aired on many of its stations, and with good reason. “We wouldn’t put it out there if we didn’t think we could get more people to watch it,” she said.

In November, Fox Stations’ latenight news viewership rose an average of 13%. And Feder said Tribune stations in Midwest and southern markets garner big ratings, particularly when there is weather to report.

“I think we’re still critical to people’s lives,” he said. “They still count on us.”

Friend said the way WCBS reporters covered Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath proves the value of the medium.

“If our citizens didn’t have local news to rely on, they would have been lost,” he said.  “No one impacts the lives of citizens in their hometowns like local news.”

Read all of our NewsTECHForum 2015 coverage here.