When Will Smart News Become Goal?

In his article “Crime News, Without Context, Equals Bias” (Op-Ed, Oct. 31), columnist Tom Plate talked about the overemphasis of violent crime on local television news. He discussed how this overplay distorted the level and importance of crime in society and reinforced racial stereotyping of criminals.

In another article in the November issue of the Atlantic Monthly, a book reviewer noted that urban crime is “milked for blood and profit every night on the 11 o’clock news.”

I’ve spent 20 years in local television news. I must admit that here in L.A., I won’t let my 7-year-old watch the crime-ridden local evening newscasts for fear of instilling paranoia and prejudice in his young mind. Hard-pressed to offer a defense of my business, I do have a couple of explanations.

First of all, it might be argued spot or breaking news is the ultimate stuff of TV news. When earthquakes or hurricanes hit, television is there live with pictures, potentially life-saving warnings and the latest information. Experience has shown that stations unable to keep up in the race for breaking news ultimately suffer in the ratings.

While this is a thin defense for the surfeit of crime news reported out of context, covering small-time breaking news is an automatic process for any news operation.

There’s another aspect to television news and its seeming blood-lust. Crime stories are cheap and easy at a time when local news has less money.

For at least the past decade, television news departments have been putting on more hours of news with ever-shrinking budgets and staffs. Personnel have been stretched to the limit and producers have been hard-pressed to fill their newscasts with interesting material.

Crime is fast food for television news. Shootings and car chases pour out of radio scanners into the ears of story-hungry assignment managers. A news crew can videotape a crime scene, interview a police officer and a neighbor, write, edit and be ready for a live shot by noon. No wonder, as was reported in The Times, researchers found local newscasts leading with crime more than half the time.

There have been news operations in the country known for their in-depth stories, investigative projects and award-winning documentaries. Some of these stations have also led in the ratings. But at most stations, programmers know that content plays a tiny role in the race for audience numbers. Ratings are largely affected by lead-in, by the Oprahs and prime-time network lineups. If that’s the case, why spend the money on the extra staff needed to do in-depth news? Keep the news budget as tight as possible, that’s the logical financial conclusion.

This puts an added burden on an already overworked staff of news managers and reporters. It means investing in time that isn’t there to do the research, to provide the context or to dig up the more important stories. It means that an exhausted reporter or assignment manager who has already put in an 11-hour day needs to make one more phone call or do one more data base search to find meaningful news.

Which local L.A. news department will be the first to de-clone, to depart from the lock-step of crime litanies and Glamour magazine-style sweeps month series and invest in context and substance? Until that happens television stations forsake the responsibility of doing news, grossly underestimate the audience and consequently ignore a potential audience magnet.