For as long as I have heard it discussed, the network has been the brass ring, the big prize, and reaching that “station” in one’s media career meant more than just some added prestige and an added zero on a paycheck.
As I have heard in numerous conversations with reporters, producers, photographers, etc. joining the three-letter club meant you had finally arrived in the business and all your hard work covering city council meetings, single-car crashes, and local fundraisers had paid off.
I suppose it’s still like making it to the show after toiling in the minor leagues for a few years but from where I sit, I am noticing not only a great deal more parity between network and local but an increasing reliance by one upon the other.
And rightly so if you ask me and it’s about time we recognized it.
I like what I’ve been seeing on the network newscasts of late; unfamiliar faces telling us the stories that are happening in their territory. This is not a new concept but it’s occurring more frequently and it’s something that I think will sustain broadcast news and bridge those wide gaps that exist between national and regional storytelling as well as those separating the network people from their local partners.
Let’s be real about the product for a moment. If you’ve ever been on the scene of the big story you may have been witness to an almost symbolic parting of the seas when the network shows up as if to say, this tale needs our blessing and our help to be told to a national audience so we have come to elevate it to the masses.
Yes, a bit of an exaggeration but if you go in for movie and TV stereotypes, think of when the FBI shows up at Nakatomi Plaza and announces to the LAPD that they’re taking over Hans Gruber’s hostage scene.
(From an ex-cop’s perspective, I have a few chuckles to share about that real-life concept and I can clue you in on what local cops say the letters FBI, ATF & DEA stand for. See me after class).
In any case, what once was is not what is now when it comes to news coverage. Big stories that happen someplace local (Don’t they all, really?) no longer become network property by default. It seems the news bosses often know a good thing when they see it so more, they are leaving it to the experts, the people who live there, who know where they are.
The locals.
Not that national correspondents lack the capacity to inform us on local news, it’s simply smoother to get the information from someone who knows what happened in the area before the story did and what it will mean now, tomorrow, and a month from now.
Frankly, I feel better informed by WCBS-TV Reporter Tony Aiello, who tells his stories right next store to where a tanker crash destroyed a bridge in Norwalk, Connecticut.
The networks provided heavy coverage of the mammoth storms and flooding in Texas but doesn’t KTRK’s Lileana Pearson have more than a leg up information-wise on what impact a cresting San Jacinto River will have on the neighboring communities?
WBTV’s Ron Lewis was certainly able to give national audiences a clearer, more intimate look at the tragic deaths of four law enforcement officers during a shootout with an armed fugitive in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Fox 13 Seattle’s Dave Detling was quite adept at spinning animal yarns when four zebras escaped containment along I-90 in North Bend. And national audiences no doubt kept up as the search continued on for several days when one of them decided to stay out well past curfew.
Local reporters, photographers, and producers can tell us more about what happened in their backyards and what it means to the people who live there than a network correspondent and crew hastily flown in for the evening news. That’s not a knock against the network or the correspondent, it’s only common sense.
Some stories struggle for angles, sidebars, and follow-ups but they usually are out there and with the idea of local and national working together, there sits the prospect of quality comprehensive coverage.
Give me people who know their audience, their community, and what happens next when the big story happens to them. Let them tell us what it will mean with fresh, firsthand accounts. This is when we need more than a much more familiar name and face being spoon-fed information by a field producer or worse somebody a thousand miles away talking in their ear.
Luckily, I’m starting to believe the networks are realizing they are not making it work with generic, overplayed references and subjective facts.
Pass the microphones to those who were there from the start and will be there when network sat trucks pull away.
Along with being a public relations win and a feather in the cap of credibility, it’s potential victory in the ledger as networks and stations make their budget cuts every six months.
Furthermore, I think America deserves to see who’s out there among the markets, large and small. Do you think a local journalist in Chattanooga can’t tell a good story based in their city and make it relatable and informative?
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of room for the national correspondent. You know them, they show up on GMA or The Today Show and magically reappear for the evening newscasts. They’re seasoned and poised with not a hair out of place unless the bosses back in New York want it to be.
Meanwhile, the General Assignment Reporter in Des Moines is on their third story of the day but is graciously gifted with a photographer for the live hit on the network cast, unless of course, they truck in the network’s ace from Chicago, the one who’s never set foot in Iowa before today.
They say good business begins with good business practices. Okay maybe “they” don’t say that, perhaps it was only me and if that’s the case, I said it first and I want full credit and any subsidiary rights and merchandising deals that follow.
Read the trades, everybody is in financial straits, layoffs happen every month (read last week’s column) and the news executives are getting their names and faces splashed all over the place because their bosses are unimpressed with their results or just don’t trust them anymore.
Networks, locals, and the media companies that own most of the stations have to find new ways to make the old business work and step one is by improving the product and spending the money wisely.
Why be redundant?
If the local affiliate reporter can provide the national audience with the national story, why jet a team there to tell us the same things only diluted by geographic ignorance?
Believe it or not, the dwindling audiences can see, hear, and read the difference.
I for one, whenever possible always support local businesses.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
