More Local

A. More Local

Local communities are ground zero for the changes in how citizens are getting information. Local newspaper audiences have declined by 25.6 percent in the past 10 years and one-third of newspaper jobs have been lost since 2001.19 Public media are poised to fill the gap, but to do so, steps must be taken to

• Encourage innovation
• Strengthen leadership and resources devoted to local news and information
• Promote internal and external partnerships
• Engage communities on all platforms

Public radio stations have built on the strong audience appeal of the national programs to create a local news presence. It is relatively easy to provide local headlines, weather and traffic during predictable breaks in Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Stations that might not have the reporting talent to produce a longer news magazine can still produce short packages that can be incorporated into the national programs. This also guarantees that local content, by appearing within the national programs, gets maximum exposure, since purely local programs draw fewer listeners than the national programs. Morning Edition gets the most listeners of any national program, capturing as much as 25 percent of all listeners at some stations.20

Some radio stations have built the news and information identity into a strong local brand with a reporting staff and local news programming. But closer examination shows local news capacity is uneven and very limited at the majority of local stations. NPR’s Local News Initiative and CPB’s Grow the Audience project have both studied local news capacity in detail.

The Local News Initiative found only 15 percent of NPR’s member stations have more than four people reporting full time and another 30 percent had two to three. A majority of stations had only one (22 percent) or none (33 percent).21

CPB commissioned a “Census of Journalists in Public Radio and Television” this year. Michael Marcotte, who conducted the survey for Public Radio News Directors International in August 2010, said his team found about 2,000 paid news professionals in public radio, including non-NPR member stations. In addition, another 2,000 work as volunteers performing journalistic functions.22

Tom Thomas of the Station Resource Group, which conducted the Grow the Audience project, says there are five stations that invest more than $20 million in their broadcast operations, have newsrooms of more than 20 and reach more than 500,000 listeners weekly. About a dozen more spend more than $10 million, have 10 to 20 in the newsroom and reach more than 250,000 weekly. Below those tiers, the investment, staffing and audience are much more modest.

With more investment, the strongest stations could make a leap to the next level of excellence. These stations could serve as models for building local news and information capacity around the country. Here are recommendations for making that vision a reality.

1. Encourage innovative models for public media local news initiatives and look for opportunities to scale up such ventures.

The five community-based public radio organizations with the strongest news operations and biggest audiences are New York Public Radio, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), Chicago Public Radio, KQED Public Media (Northern California) and Southern California Public Radio in Los Angeles. They share characteristics: except for MPR, they are located in the largest markets in the country, they are licensed to community boards rather than institutions, they operate multiple stations and only KQED-FM in San Francisco is a joint licensee with a television station. They are led by visionaries who have staked success on making a mark in news and information. They are among the top-rated stations in the system and the most successful fundraisers.

None of these stations is resting on its laurels. All have ambitious plans to expand their reporting strength, to create new areas of expertise and to greatly expand their engagement with digital media. Laura Walker of New York Public Radio said, “I’m quite concerned about the tone of journalism. It’s imperative to provide in-depth reporting, not just recreate the newspaper. We need to look forward.”

Among these stations’ initiatives:

• New York Public Radio has developed plans to “dive deep” by significantly strengthening efforts in three content areas: New York government and politics, the New York economy and New York culture. NYPR plans to add $30 million over five years to the $20 million it already spends on content to grow its editorial staff to more than 100 and to build a digital news platform. It also will seek ways to program WNYC-AM 24/7 to support its mission. Walker said, “This combination of local news, online information, curating online and radio civic engagement is, we believe, the ultimate statement of our local news/information mission.”

• KQED is increasing local news content and integrating radio and online formats. It is adding 8 new positions to its newsroom staff of 45 and 10 regional newscasts to the daily schedule. The newly launched website is called KQED News (KQEDnews.org) and will stream the new newscasts. KQED president and CEO John Boland said, “We’re transforming what was a very successful 20th-century broadcasting organization into the model for 21st-century digital media.”23

• Minnesota Public Radio has long been a leader in innovation. Among its latest efforts is Public Insight Network (PIN), a database of 89,000 experts in a wide range of subjects. The database is being shared with dozens of other public radio stations. PIN will be described in detail in the Interactive section of this paper.

Many of these station initiatives, like Public Insight Network, are being shared with other stations. One of NYPR’s content specialties is transportation and infrastructure, a natural for New York City. NYPR has extended its expertise by forming a hub for reporting on transportation and infrastructure with reporters embedded at local stations WDET/Detroit, Minnesota Public Radio, KALW/San Francisco, WAMU/Washington, D.C., Yellowstone Public Radio/Montana, and KUHF/Houston, as well as at American Public Media’s Marketplace. With hopes to add stations in Seattle, Atlanta and Arizona soon, the project will deepen its coverage with looks at transportation and civil rights, transportation and climate change and connections between development, housing and social equity.

At the national level, efforts are being made to strengthen the news capacity of local stations. Although some station managers privately express fears that pod-casting and online delivery will change the relationship among network, stations and audience, NPR president Vivian Schiller believes the national organization needs to maintain its ties to local stations. “People listen to stations, not NPR,” she said in an interview. “Our fate is tied to local stations. How can we cover news in 800 (NPR member station) markets?”

As digital media open possibilities for national producers such as NPR to reach audiences directly, it is important that NPR keep this commitment to develop local stations. APM president Bill Kling said, “As the strongest national producer, NPR has the dual obligation to (a) become an important national institution and (b) assist its member stations in becoming important community institutions.”

National organizations have launched two significant projects to strengthen local news capacity. They are:

• CPB’s Local Journalism Centers (LJCs). The $10.5 million initiative was launched this spring with the goal of creating seven centers across the country partnering several stations in each region to focus on a relevant topic. For example, the Southwest consortium, titled Fronteras, brings together stations in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas where a bilingual reporting team will report on cross-cultural issues. Seven reporters, two editors and a social media editor will staff the project. However, the local journalism centers are expected to become self-sustaining in two years.24

• NPR’s Project Argo. The collaboration between NPR and 12 member stations, including some television/radio joint licensees, funds one content creator who focuses on a topic of local importance, such as politics, health care, the environment and criminal justice. For example, Oregon Public Broadcasting “will track policy developments that affect…natural resources, and host a conversation about how they should be managed.” NPR staff is assisting with construction of Argo websites and tracking metrics for website use and engagement. The sites are to be incorporated into NPR’s content management system and utilize PBS’s embeddable video player. The project is funded with $2 million from CPB and $1 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.25

These projects are a good beginning, but represent a tiny fraction of the budgets of CPB and NPR. Much more support will be needed, both conceptual and financial, to have an impact on the larger system. Much of that support should go to station-to-station sharing so that the successful models can be replicated in more communities.

2. Strengthen leadership and resources devoted to local news and information, and invest $100 million to add 1,000 public media reporters.

Journalism requires boots on the ground. A major criticism of the blogosphere is that it is derivative of original reporting. Investigative reporting particularly requires time that only comes when there is enough staff to free reporters from daily demands.

Public media are not even close to having enough staff to replace what is being lost from newspapers. Even newspapers hit by drastic cutbacks, such as the Akron Beacon Journal, still have newsroom staff that number close to 100. More than half of public stations have one reporter or none.

Some far-reaching proposals suggest dramatic increases. Tom Thomas proposes investing $100 million to hire, equip and support 1,000 additional news staff, increasing the size of the current professional local news force by 50 percent. The funds would cover annual salary and benefits plus editorial, technical and administrative support. While the seed money would need to come from national sources, both governmental and philanthropic, he believes sustaining money could come from foundations and major donors at the local and regional level who are interested in facilitating civic engagement.

Still, 1,000 new reporters amount to only about three per market. APM’s Kling proposes focusing on public media’s journalistic strength in the top 25 markets. He proposes to demonstrate the full potential of local public media by raising philanthropic funding to create four to six model public media centers, built on the foundation of public radio stations, with 100 journalists and editors, strong governance and company leadership. In the case of his own Minnesota Public Radio, which has 80 news department staff, including 30 reporters, he would like to see 100 reporters to begin to match staffing levels at the local newspapers. APM’s Southern California Public Radio would also be a candidate by building on its 20 reporters to bring its reporting and editorial staff to the 100-person level. New York’s NYPR and Chicago’s WBEZ are the other initial partners in this venture.

The fund for more reporters could be created at the national level, with reallocated and new government funds and a bold commitment from philanthropic organizations. Stations and independent journalists would apply for the funding by submitting proposals to demonstrate how their coverage would enrich local information capacity.

This influx of new talent should bring new attributes. In addition to excellent reporting skills, they would need to know how to prepare material for all platforms and be digitally fluent. Such requirements are becoming the industry norm. At the commercial network level, ABC News moved this year toward replacing traditional reporting teams of correspondent, producer and camera crew with digital journalists who can master several skills.26

The new staff should contribute to increasing gender, ethnic, religious and other types of diversity in the public media workforce. They should have a variety of content expertise in areas most in need of attention now—in economics, the environment and science, for example.

To promote continued high quality, to adjust to changing information demands and to keep pace with technological changes, public media leaders and managers should invest in professional development opportunities for their journalists, current and new. For example, 22 local journalists from 19 states gained expertise in covering business and economics through the NPR News Economics Training Project, a CPB-funded initiative.27

Public media cannot afford to squander its reputation for accuracy and fairness with sloppy journalism. As more reporters are added, it is also important to add editing and producing capability to ensure quality. In its local news survey, NPR found that only 37 percent of reporters said their work was always edited by someone, while 20 percent said their work was never edited. Only 24 percent of stations reported having full-time editors.28 It is vital to strengthen editing and producing ranks to protect the credibility of public media.

3. Promote internal and external partnerships.

CPB’s Local Journalism Centers are a good first step to creating regional sharing of reporting efforts and content. Some regional networks are succeeding, such as the Northwest News Network. This should be encouraged.

Collaborations around content are also important, as demonstrated by NYPR’s transportation and infrastructure hub. Public television station KETC in St. Louis developed web resources on the mortgage crisis that proved to be just as valuable in Tampa and Las Vegas. Communities of interest should be fostered, something done easily with digital media.

The technical means to make this happen should continue to be developed. NPR’s application programming interface is serving that need and the Public Media Platform will expand that effort exponentially. Public Radio Exchange (PRX) also provides that opportunity. PBS is developing a “supervertical” for news content from all programs, local as well as national, and will participate in the Public Media Platform. These projects will be described further in the Interactive section, below.

Public media organizations are not only partnering with other public media, they are also looking externally for partners. Jo Anne Wallace, general manager of KQED-FM, said, “As we watch what’s happening to local newspapers, we can’t duplicate the breadth of coverage unless we partner. We’re looking for partnerships of all sizes, large and small.” KQED partners with more than 25 organizations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Center for Investigative Reporting, Youth Radio and ProPublica.

Almost all of the most talked-about non-profit journalism web ventures, such as Voice of San Diego, Texas Tribune, the St. Louis Beacon and the Chicago News Cooperative, have a connection to local public media. The new sites have captured a lot of attention, but are still limited in reach and pose questions about sustain-ability. By partnering with public media, with an established track record in news, the new ventures can benefit from stability and a larger audience, while public media can benefit from the new ventures’ increased reporting heft. The Beacon, for example, has 13 news staff, while the St. Louis public radio station has seven in its news department.

4. Define the role for public television stations in meeting information needs of communities.

Jim Lehrer, the best-known news figure in public broadcasting, sees a gap to be filled. “There’s a crying need for serious reporting at the local level,” he said in an interview. “Public media has a responsibility to meet that need.”

His proposal is a simple one: to build on what newspapers are already doing. “Newspapers already have beat reporters covering local issues,” he said. They can collaborate with the local public television station to start a news program. As he travels the country, he is urging public stations to find a way to mount such programs, a daily one if possible. In San Antonio he hit on success by bringing together KLRN with the San Antonio Express News, which are now planning a program on Friday night to be hosted by the newspaper’s editor. If he can get four or five such programs started, he believes he will have a model to show to others.

Up to now, local news programming has not been a high priority for public television stations and there is little original reporting done by most public stations except for occasional documentaries. There are a number of reasons for that, including the competition with commercial stations for local news viewers. News is an important profit center for commercial stations and with three or more stations in a market, competition is fierce. The number of commercial stations offering news in a market grew through the 1990s and has declined in the past two years by only eight stations nationwide. In the local news arena, public radio faces less competition while public television faces more.

There is also the matter of expense. The budget for a commercial television newsroom in a mid-size market is about $4 million to $5 million annually, one-third to one-half of the entire budget for public stations in comparable markets.

Some public television stations are venturing deeper into news and public affairs, sometimes by partnering with one of the new non-profit news websites. In St. Louis, KETC is providing office space for The Beacon, a website founded by former staffers for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and sharing content. In San Diego, KPBS has launched Project Envision, a multi-platform effort with deep reporting on local issues that appears on television, radio and online and that engages the community in contributing information to the project.

While it may be natural for public television and radio stations to pair up when they share a license, PBS president Paula Kerger sees a role for those television stations that do not have that benefit. Public television stations can expand upon existing public affairs work and form partnerships with their local radio stations, Kerger said. “Even if a station doesn’t have its own newsroom, it still has a vital role to play. Local PBS stations have always served as community conveners— places where citizens come together to engage in civil discourse—and that will continue in the digital age,” she said.

Rather than producing newscasts or staffing a full newsroom, public television stations can partner with other news organizations, such as public radio stations, local newspapers and non-profit websites to give those reporting efforts wider distribution. They can also serve as conveners meeting community needs, as KETC did in St. Louis with its “Facing the Mortgage Crisis” project, which combined town hall meetings with an interactive web resource where citizens could post questions and get answers.

Public television should form a study group of general managers and others to develop a strategy for news content and civic engagement. This could be undertaken by CPB as an effort comparable to the Grow the Audience project for public radio. PBS has taken steps to strengthen national news and public affairs programming by building up digital platforms and extending Frontline to a year-round schedule. It is urgent for leaders at the local level of public television to examine the future for news and public affairs.

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