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March 2010: New Local News Study Released
The Lear Center has released its unprecedented study of more than 11,000 news stories aired by eight LA TV stations. The results should have a direct bearing on the FCC’s current proceedings on localism and the public interest obligations of broadcasters. Read the press release. Read the full report Local TV News in the Los Angeles Media Market: Are Stations Serving the Public Interest?

Read media coverage of this report

WATCH THE RIVETING PANEL DISCUSSION OF THIS REPORT

Watch video highlights from the discussion:

The Lear Center Local News Archive provides an unprecedented nationwide look at the news media Americans experience during campaigns, in response to the decline in quality of broadcast political coverage and the negative effect this has on democracy overall. This project tracks local broadcast political coverage; identifies and highlights best practices; provides resources for the improvement of coverage; and provides an online library of broadcast political coverage.

 Lear Team Part of Invited Peer Review of FCC Media Ownership Study
 Lear Center Director Kaplan Testifies Before FCC
 "Does Local News Measure Up?" appears in Stanford Law & Policy Review

In 2004, the Lear Center received funding from the Joyce Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Pew Hispanic Center to launch a new video archive with data from the 2004 election. The Archive contains the following:

  • campaign stories aired from 5:00 pm to 11:30 pm in 11 media markets between October 4, 2004, and November 1, 2004 (see our FAQ for a complete list) 
  • nightly national news broadcasts aired on ABC, CBS, and NBC between October 4 and November 1, 2004
  • nightly news shows on CNN (Wolf Blitzer), MSN (Dan Abrams) and FOX (Shepard Smith) between October 4 and November 1, 2004
  • all evening news broadcasts aired between 5:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on September 30, October 1 and October 4 – November 1, 2004, on the following Spanish-language local stations: KMEX (Univision) and KVEA (Telemundo) in Los Angeles; WLTV (Univision) and WSCV (Telemundo) in Miami; and WXTV (Univision) and WNJU (Telemundo) in New York
  • nightly national news broadcasts aired on Telemundo and Univision on September 30, October 1 and October 4 – November 1, 2004

In partnership with the Pew Hispanic Center , the Lear Center Local News Archive collected data on Spanish-language news broadcasts and English-language network and cable news broadcasts. The Lear Center and the Pew Hispanic Center documented how political coverage on Spanish-language stations – both national and local – compared to English language news broadcasts.

Previous Findings

The Lear Center has issued reports on local news coverage since 1998. Beginning in mid-September and continuing through Election Day 2002, the project released regular reports and commentary on the quantity and quality of local television news campaign coverage. The reports documented practices like the amount of time local television stations devoted to campaign coverage and how stories were framed, with particular attention to the use of best practices. Over the longer-term, the project will disseminate and promote its findings through a series of scholarly conference papers, research articles, and possibly a book.

Results from the 2002 report were cited in a June 16, 2004, letter from Senate Commerce Committee chair John McCain and FCC chair Michael Powell to the heads of all the broadcast networks. The letter reported our finding that in the seven weeks leading up to election day 2002, more than half of all top-rated local news broadcasts did not have any campaign coverage. When they did air campaign stories on local news broadcasts, only 24 percent of the stories were about issues -- most were focused on campaign strategy and polling data.

  • Best practices advocacy

This project, under the umbrella of its Reliable Resources program, provides several tools specifically designed to improve broadcast political coverage:

    1. An award, The USC Annenberg Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Broadcast TV Political Journalism, recognizes outstanding examples of  campaign coverage. Awards were given for coverage of the 2000 and 2002 elections, and a 2004 award will be granted in April 2005.
    2. An instructional best practices video, the third in a series, draws on coverage of the 2002 election cycle. It provides examples of stories and interviews with practitioners. For free copies, email enter@usc.edu.
    3. The Reliable Resources Web site is a source of extensive information tailored to the needs of political reporters and producers. The Political Reporters' Resource Roadmap is continuously updated.

  • Searchable digital local news archive

In 2002, the project designed and built a searchable database of local news programming from 122 local stations (identified through a stratified random sample) around the country. This effort included:

    1. Digitally recording the highest rated 1/2 hour of early evening and late local news, from September 2nd through November 4th, 2002
    2. Coding each broadcast for content, images, language, tone, amount of coverage, length of sound bites, format of coverage use of best practices
    3. Developing archiving software
    4. Building a searchable online archive, made publicly available and free of charge

  • 2002 Post-election analysis and promotion

In Spring 2003, the project released a comprehensive study of local news media practices in the 2002 campaigns. The findings were integrated with University of Wisconsin findings on political advertising. Download the 2002 report.