Can Local Television Come to the Rescue of Broadcast Journalism?

Sometimes, in my darker moments, I have imagined how the victims of the Bhopal disaster must have felt when they lay, gasping and despondent, searching the horizon for salvation, and saw coming to their rescue . . . Melvin Belli.

Many people must feel that way, I suppose, when they hear it said that the future of broadcast journalism, growing out of the current disarray of the networks, may be found in . . . local television.

Their dismay is understandable. It is true that local TV news has often smacked more of Eddie Murphy than of Ed Murrow, and that “happy talk” started out as home-grown corn.

But, as somebody once said, things are not what they used to be--and probably never were. The network news operations seem to be retreating from the standards of quality that were once taken for granted, and many local TV news operations have been excellent all along, and are getting better.

There are powerful forces behind the erosion of network news, and the end result could be a restructuring of television journalism into a form much more like print news, in which a few big-city, high-quality dailies set the standards of excellence.

The current staff cutbacks at CBS News (and similar ones that will slice through ABC and NBC) are the out-growth of a steady erosion in the networks’ one-time domination of the nation’s television viewership and revenues.

Fifteen years ago you could turn on the TV set in most communities and get only three or four channels--CBS, NBC, ABC and perhaps public TV. The three networks had about 93% of the prime-time audience then. Now people can watch independent stations, cable and videocassettes, and the networks’ share is around 78%--and sinking.

Consequently, network revenues are in a long-term slide, and the newsroom cutbacks are the result. As Dan Rather summed it up in a rueful article: “That means we will cover less news. We will go to fewer places and witness fewer events.” It also means that the networks will sometimes be covering the news with less-experienced, lower-paid reporters, with part-time “stringers” and with pictures purchased from journalists who were there, narrated by correspondents who weren’t. Specialization may become a luxury of the past.

In other words, the networks are drifting toward the role performed in print journalism by the financially limited wire services. Meanwhile, the local stations are picking up the role played by big-city newspapers.

Local stations have also felt the effect of a proliferation of channels, but local news hasn’t suffered financially. Local advertisers like the prestige of associating their wares with news, and have been willing to pay top dollar for it.

So news is hot on local TV. Stations have lengthened and strengthened their news broadcasts. Like Willie Sutton, network journalists have begun to go where the money is. Sylvia Chase left ABC’s “20-20” for KRON-TV in San Francisco; Steve Bell left “Good Morning America” for Philadelphia.

The part of this that appalls many critics is that so many local television stations waste their high-paid talent on flash-and-trash journalism that amounts to tabloid TV. This probably won’t change. Tabloids have always been a part of big-city print journalism, and there’s no reason why television should be different.

But in some cities (such as Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee) local TV news has traditionally included a high quotient of top-quality work. There are types of news (consumer, sports, commentaries, investigative journalism) in which many locals now outdo the networks. As the money balance continues to shift from network to local, this list should grow--and the new satellite technologies will permit the locals to “be there” and cover events that previously only the networks could reach.

Yet there are certain types of news that local stations will probably never have the expertise to handle. In some of these areas--national politics, the White House, spot foreign news--the networks will continue to carry the load. But in others--documentaries, specialties such as the law and in-depth foreign coverage--the networks are cutting back in areas that the locals are ill equipped to occupy.

The outcome may be that in some respects television viewers will simply receive less news. But one further development may help close the gap. Local stations are increasingly being bought up by groups with strong journalistic traditions and/or tremendous financial resources. This could lead to high-quality reporting, documentaries and commentaries being done at certain of the local stations and then broadcast throughout the groups.

So television news junkies may find their consolation in an unlikely place . . . local TV.