Where will we steal the news?

[amfmxm]

This is kind of a continuation of a thread that spun off (way off) another topic below. But I think it's worth some consideration.

I had offered the observation that local radio news had become largely of the "kiss & a promise" variety--just a handful of headlines stolen from the local newspaper... and that a year or two ago I had watched a great PBS report ("Frontline," I think) discussing how nearly all electronic media--TV and the internet in addition to radio--depended on newspaper reporting staffs to generate content... then just repeated it among themselves. The red flag they were waving was how newspapers (they focused on the Tribune Company) were slashing those reporting staffs to the bare bone in order to show cash flow and please Wall Street.

The first question is, once the newspaper reporters are gone, where will we steal the news? The second question is how soon will this happen?

Or do we just spin another Taylor Swift tune and forget about it?

 

[SirRoxalot]

With newspaper reporting staffs shrinking, they'll be trying to cover more ground by relying on "Internet research" (i.e. bloggers) to get leads. We've already seen the "Drudgitization" of TV news. Speaking of TV news, how many stations are now just playing TV audio instead of actually putting together a newscast?

We're already at the stage where we get nearly as much opinion as we do real reporting from the TV talking heads. News/Talk radio is no more pristine when it comes to slant. There's also a growing number of management types who promote the line that people don't want news on the radio anyway since they can get instant, on-demand video from the Internet from a variety of sources that match their own biases.

In short, the future of radio news is dim at best. In case of a major event or emergency, jocks will either be ignoring the obvious, or rebroadcasting information from other sources.

The good news? Taylor Swift is pretty hot...

 

[TheBigA]

Funny...I was wondering WHO was reading newspapers anymore. Certainly not the public.

How about the wire services? They do local reporting. Companies like AP and Reuters. UPI is still in business.

I don't expect newspaper reporting to completely disappear, but rather retool into something a bit different. The process of reporting the news has changed from the days of reporters beating the street. The paper trail is far easier to follow these days, and you don't have to actually be present when a house burns down to be able to report that it happened.

And if there's a market for it, and there's money to be made doing it, I promise SOMEONE will come along to provide some form of local news service for broadcasters.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I don't know where your wire services are, but the AP doesn't do much local reporting in Indiana. Virtually every story that comes down the wires has "Information from the Indianapolis Star" or "WISH-TV" or "WTHR-TV".

 

[landtuna]

Funny...I was wondering WHO was reading newspapers anymore. Certainly not the public.

From my informal observations of newspapers thrown on my neighbors driveways I suspect that slightly more than half the homes receive at least one daily paper. We also have a freebie weekly that every home receives (whether they want it or not) covering the local high school and business news. Don't have numbers on just who reads that but I suspect most do, especially those with kids in school.

How about the wire services? They do local reporting. Companies like AP and Reuters. UPI is still in business.

Most local paper and electronic news sources duplicate their repetition of wire service stories and augment this with locally produced news (traffic accidents, fires, crimes etc.). Increasingly, the online national news orgs have a local news link embedded which usually sources local TV and newspaper reporting. Personally, I read my local fish wrapper online each and every day as well as at least one national and one wire service. That seems to even out the bias that is evident in one sole source.

... and you don't have to actually be present when a house burns down to be able to report that it happened.

Yeah, that's what those expensive helo's are for, right?

And if there's a market for it, and there's money to be made doing it, I promise SOMEONE will come along to provide some form of local news service for broadcasters.

I usually listen to KOOL for a short while each morning (KOOL is an "oldies/classic hits" music outlet). They used to do a real hourly newscast as well as a quickie headline update on the half-hour but lately it seems they select 2-3 stories off the Internet and in presenting those the "news" turns into more of a humoresque fun-fest. They are apparently also using the Internet to obtain traffic and weather "on the fly" as well as there are frequent delays while waiting for the page to display. Pretty useless IMHO. I don't know why they just don't drop the pretense.

 

[TheBigA]

Most local paper and electronic news sources duplicate their repetition of wire service stories and augment this with locally produced news (traffic accidents, fires, crimes etc.).

You might want to check on the topic of this thread.

 

[landtuna]

Most local paper and electronic news sources duplicate their repetition of wire service stories and augment this with locally produced news (traffic accidents, fires, crimes etc.).

You might want to check on the topic of this thread.

OK, the short answer is "nowhere". How's that?

 

[radiorob2.0]

My community has a population of 71,000. Television news comes from a city 30 miles away of 150,000. News from my community is mentioned when time permits. Until 1995 radio news covered my community well, but it was eliminated. Today, the voice on the radio steals from the newspaper and calls it news. If something happens after the paper is delivered, I have to wait until the next morning. The owner or each of the local broadcast empires believe that is serving the community.

Sam Zell and Randy Michaels are now applying their kiosk style of media to print. The internet is all we have, for now.

 

[TheBigA]

The internet is all we have, for now.

You have local news on the internet? From where?

 

[XRQKFM]

You can always do what the big broadcasters do; Just make it up! The station that carries Rush in the #77 market just reads the day old newspaper, no matter how wrong, or outdated it is. During the stations live show following Rush, a swarm of earthquakes measuring in 4.8 range began shacking the area; the talk show host made a brief mention as they occurred, but not a word from the so called live top of the newscasts until the next afternoon when the paper came out.

You would think the number one talk station in the market could afford to have someone to read the news live, some how I don't think the group owner would get away with it at WOR!

Lost credibility is hard to replace.


Steve
www.radiooutlaw.us

 

[SirRoxalot]

If newspaper companies are to survive, they need to develop alternate delivery systems. Smart newspapers are already delivering breaking news updates on the web. They don't have the detail of the next day's newspaper story, but they've got at least as much detail as the local radio and TV station reporters would deliver, along with a promo for the story in the next day's paper. Some papers are even delivering on-demand video, shot by the photogs along with digital stills.

Newspapers still have far more staff to cover stories than any other media. They also have more resources to do investigative and enterprise reporting. Most wire service copy comes from existing local media, not reporters hired exclusively by AP, UPI, Reuters, etc.

I'm surprised that more radio groups haven't cut deals with the newspaper companies to legitimately use their coverage, with a plug for the paper as part or all of the payment.

 

[TheBigA]

If newspaper companies are to survive, they need to develop alternate delivery systems.

I think they are, but those alternate platforms simply don't replace the income being lost by the mother ship. WashingtonPost.com makes about $6 million. But the print edition has been losing $60 million. Do the math. It's not pretty. Alternate delivery systems are competing with free, and it's hard to compete with free, no matter how good or credible you are.

Newspapers still have far more staff to cover stories than any other media.

For the time being. As stated at the top of this thread, it's very likely that print newspapers are in decline. Ad revenues are down, subscriptions are down, and as a result, they're laying off staff.

I'm surprised that more radio groups haven't cut deals with the newspaper companies to legitimately use their coverage, with a plug for the paper as part or all of the payment.

I think a lot of them have, and so have local TV channels. They share info on air and online.

The funny part is the government and grassroots community media groups are doing all they can to prevent any co-ownership between broadcast and print media, claiming too much concentration of media. But as we all learned before the 96 Act, you don't need to own something to have a strategic relationship with it. That's what's happening now, regardless of how the "media concentration activists feel about it.

Lately, the new title at newspapers is "Brand Merchandising." It's a variation on marketing director. It involves ways in which the paper can merchandise their brand, is their name and assets, in other media. If it hasn't hit the small markets yet, it will.

 

[DouglasB]

This is kind of a continuation of a thread that spun off (way off) another topic below. But I think it's worth some consideration.

I had offered the observation that local radio news had become largely of the "kiss & a promise" variety--just a handful of headlines stolen from the local newspaper...

In our local market, you can watch the local news on TV and read along in the paper....it's that bad. Further, I contend that if, for some reason, the local paper would ever fail to publish one morning, that the radio would be silent, and the TV anchors would be sitting there, staring at each other............content, steal it where you can.

 

[jackandcoke]

Newspapers still have far more staff to cover stories than any other media. They also have more resources to do investigative and enterprise reporting. Most wire service copy comes from existing local media, not reporters hired exclusively by AP, UPI, Reuters, etc.

I'm surprised that more radio groups haven't cut deals with the newspaper companies to legitimately use their coverage, with a plug for the paper as part or all of the payment.

In one of our markets, our full-service AC has struck a deal with the local newspaper to use their news content--from both the printed edition and/or the online edition--in exchange for promoting the newspaper on-ar. The deal is now in its third year and everyone is happy. In approaching the publisher and managing editor I acknowledged what everyone knew--that there was no way that our one-person "news" staff (an anchor, not a reporter) would ever be able to be everyplace their 17-person reporting staff could be--but that they could undoubtedly use our promotional help in building their circulation (or at least mitigating their circulation decreases). So we start each of our radio newscasts with "from the reporting staff of the Valley Daily News" and end each cast with "for more details go to dailynews-dot-com" and run a handful of ROS promotional spots showcasing the partnership. They, in turn, run occasional promotional ads likewise touting the radio-newspaper partnership and directing readers to our station.

As they say, it ain't rocket surgery. But it does depend on both parties being willing to acknowledge to each other that the other media has some value. Sometimes radio folks are too defensive to be able to do that, and sometimes it is the newspaper people who can't bring themselves to admit that radio can be helpful to them. But when there are smart people on both sides of the desk, it can work for everyone involved.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The internet is all we have, for now.

You have local news on the internet? From where?

I have seen a glimmer of local news on the internet. It is currently on an "invitation only" website so I can't point everyone to it.

About 10 years ago we became interested the genealogy of my wife's family. Someone set up a family site on "MyFamily". It has a structure for picture, for discussion, and a "file cabine" for maps, documents, etc.

In our tiny home town in the Ozarks some of the participants had this moment of inspiration and they obtained another site on "MyFamily" and it is not the Smith family or the Clements family, but the "Paris AR" family.

It get hokey. It get "insider humor" driven some days, but it carries a lot of "current events". I get more news there than pulling up the website of the hometown newspaper.

If I went back to the radio business today in a small market, setting up an "Internet Party Line" for the home town would be right near the top of my agenda. It would be clear on the home page that if it gets posted here, it may be mentioned on the radio, you may get a call of clarification from the radio station news staff.

 

[KFodor]

Our News-talk in Dayton, Ohio still has a full-time news operation that operates around the clock with no less than a producer checking wires, the internet and police monitors 24/7. (and only for a brief period of time with only the producer) News personnel are in the building 7 days a week with others on-call in the event of a 1 am emergency. (Some news staffers, including myself live less than a ten minute drive from the station.)

There are no fewer than a dozen people involved in the operation of our news department.

Do we use the internet? Sure. We also use AP, and we're a Fox News affiliate. We do street reporting as needed, use the telephone too, and our affiliation with a local (sister) TV operation also permits us the ability to use their actualities and reporters as well.

During a recent local emergency that hit on a Sunday (a hurricane-force windstorm that knocked power out to some 300-thousand utility customers for multiple days.), we broke in with reports during the storm, mobilized our news operation and went wall-to-wall by 8 pm that evening. Live almost continuous coverage continued in one form or another for two days. We scaled back continuous coverage on day 3, but continued broadcasting storm information every 30 minutes for most of the rest of that week and did special live programming when we felt it was needed.

Oh yeah...when the Governor came to town to inspect the damage and held a press conference, we carried it live via a Comrex "Access" wireless unit. (Those things work very nicely.)

A lot of stations don't do this type of coverage anymore. But, it's still being done.

 

[gr8oldies]

You guys did a great job...we are fortunate to have WHIO; lots of other markets don't have anything of the sort. (Hope that this recent emergency will get someone in corporate to realize that the format needs to stay on 95.7 and get rid of that silly move to Sharonville).

 

[pocket-radio]

I know newspapers are seeing reduced sales, like all media is. Though, local community newspapers still provided local news and content that's on the net too.
Print classifieds have been hit hard becasue real estate and auto have made a big shift to web advertising. And why buy the news when it's free on the web too. People still read print but it's a some what older reader. For advertisers who want older customers print is still alive. Print has done a better job than radio in regards to web content and sales.

 

[amfmxm]

Our News-talk in Dayton, Ohio still has a full-time news operation that operates around the clock with no less than a producer checking wires, the internet and police monitors 24/7. (and only for a brief period of time with only the producer) News personnel are in the building 7 days a week with others on-call in the event of a 1 am emergency. (Some news staffers, including myself live less than a ten minute drive from the station.)

There are no fewer than a dozen people involved in the operation of our news department.

Do we use the internet? Sure. We also use AP, and we're a Fox News affiliate. We do street reporting as needed, use the telephone too, and our affiliation with a local (sister) TV operation also permits us the ability to use their actualities and reporters as well.

During a recent local emergency that hit on a Sunday (a hurricane-force windstorm that knocked power out to some 300-thousand utility customers for multiple days.), we broke in with reports during the storm, mobilized our news operation and went wall-to-wall by 8 pm that evening. Live almost continuous coverage continued in one form or another for two days. We scaled back continuous coverage on day 3, but continued broadcasting storm information every 30 minutes for most of the rest of that week and did special live programming when we felt it was needed.

Oh yeah...when the Governor came to town to inspect the damage and held a press conference, we carried it live via a Comrex "Access" wireless unit. (Those things work very nicely.)

A lot of stations don't do this type of coverage anymore. But, it's still being done.

WHIO-AM/FM is a very special case.

In the very Big Picture perspective, the station is owned by Cox, a company deeply rooted in the newspaper business--and WHIO operates as part of a near-monopoly with the Dayton Daily News, WHIO-TV/7 and the radio cluster. My recollection is that Dayton is one of only two (large) markets in America where one company (Cox) controls more than half of all advertising revenue--the other being Atlanta, where Cox is also the dominant player. While I'm absolutely certain that the radio news crew will swear that they are completely independent of the newspaper & TV staffs, I'm also certain that they share leads or stories with their Cox bretheran--and, at the very least, can rest assured that they'll never be sued by the DDN or Channel 7 for stealing a story.

WHIO Radio also spends very little money on programming other than news, covering 20.5 hours daily with plug-n-play network talk programs. Originating only 3.5 hours a day of local programming allows WHIO to do a bang-up job on the local news front. I'd love to see them ditch Rush, Hannity, Savage et al and return to their days of locally-produced news and talk programming. Cox has the money. The cluster has the money.

I'll agree with the other guy on the 95.7 simulcast--it had a huge impact on WHIO's ratings. How much evidence do they need? I suppose that if they can move the thing halfway to Cincy and still serve Dayton it would be a plus. But it would be a shame if they screwed up WHIO along the way...

 

[gr8oldies]

WHIO went through at least three talk hosts after Kent Voss left, none of whom caught on. To suggest that they will send their successful syndicated programming, along with the ratings and revenue they generate, to WONE or WING is absurd. Maybe in 10 years they could put a successful local staff together. Just because someone is plopped in a chair at 1414 Wilmington Ave talking about Rhine McClin doesn't mean, in and of itself, that listeners will listen.