Fascinating:
"In the month leading up to last Election Day, just 8% of the local evening newscasts in 11 of the nation's largest TV markets devoted time to local races and issues, researchers say.
Over the same period, 55% of the newscasts included reports about the presidential race. And 'eight times more coverage went to stories about accidental injuries' than to local races and issues, their report concludes.
The findings highlight "a really serious issue," says Al Tompkins, group leader of the broadcast/online unit at the Poynter Institute, a school in St. Petersburg, Fla., for professional journalists.
Other studies show that most people - about 60% - get more of their news from local TV than from any other single source. But, Tompkins says, 'if local news doesn't include much coverage of local political issues, then the electorate is obviously trying to make decisions about things it just doesn't have enough information about.'"
My most satisfying political experiences have all been on local campaigns - city races, legislative races, school elections. General elections are at once professionalized and amateurish, and at caucus time I feel more like a prop or an extra than an activist. On a local race, you get to know real people and you have real input. And when you win, the winners stay home and stay accountable.
But local elections are slipping between the media cracks in a big way. Local TV news is so short and so focused on self-promotion (one of these years I intend to take a stopwatch to the Channel 9 news and time the promos - and that includes ANYTHING featuring the helicoptor), sportys, redundant weather and stories that bleed that there's barely time to even mention a local election. The city council debate doesn't look snappy in a News Chopper shot.
Print media doesn't do much better, at least not around here with Gannett's ordert to write cookie cutter stories on local issues ("get a person on the street opinion no matter how ill informed"). And notice that the story I linked to is from USA Today and thus part of the problem.
Could the blogosphere fill the gap? Waaaaay back when in the dark ages of the internet - 1993 or so - we had a very effective and informative listserv that dealt with local events and issues in depth. After two or three glory years, it became infected with trolls and people drifted away. Its linear successor recently shook in its final rattles of death, many years after it had lost all effectiveness.
Maybe a well-written local blog could begin to fill the void left when Icon - the most successful local alt-paper - died about four years ago. Maybe I'd help with it. Any takers?
Politics
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