Behold I say Unto Thee…News at 6pm Sharp!

OK, if you would please, indulge me here and imagine the next sentence being read by Frasier Crane (aka Kelsey Grammar) or Moses (aka Charlton Heston, if you prefer). Your choice. Ready? Ok, go.

“Good Evening…Please Sit down, Shut-up and Listen as we - THE NEWS TEAM - tell you what you NEED to know.”

That basically defines the relationship we had with our audience up until a decade or so ago. Ours, like Frasier’s or Moses’, was the sometimes pretentious and condescending voice from the mountain top. Dulcet, god-like tones that we so magnanimously chose to share with the uninformed in the valley below at very specific times of OUR choosing each day.

Of course, as we’ve discussed here, ad nauseam, the elevated perch we enjoyed for all those years is no more. Our celebrity, our near deity status, tarnished like the crown of an aging beauty queen. We now reside on the valley floor with the rest of the community, competing with the uninitiated friends and neighbors of the masses for the right to share the news of the day. Some of us remain in denial and haven’t adapted all that well to this change in status. King to commoner (or worse) is never easy.

Which is Why…

I was so pleased to read about an initiative created at Gannett that effectively changes the landscape of news reporting to better reflect our now eye-level relationship with the consumer. In a nutshell, it entails rethinking how stories are told. Literally coming at them from a different perspective by reducing the dependency on institutional press releases or news conferences and balancing stories by telling them “for the neighborhood (effected) rather than about it.” Instead of allowing an event or issue to paint an area with an often unfair, stereotypical brush, they actually spend time learning and then reporting about the impact from inside the community itself. Novel, eh?

Gannett’s initial focus has been on public safety (aka crime) reporting. So, when a crime takes place, instead of slapping up a mug shot and using the police press release to tell the story they provide additional context. Where exactly is this community? Is it a high crime area? How are the residents impacted and what are they doing to cope? What are the police doing to help? They generally don’t use mug shots having realized that what’s seen creates a lasting perception that sometimes proves incorrect. And, when they do identify a suspect they make sure the audience knows the outcome of the investigation and trial. Conviction? Acquittal? They close the loop. They report with the full benefit to the community involved in mind. They use internal checks and balances to insure blanket stereotypes, which often create misconception and misinformation, are avoided. The end result is way more responsible and beneficial reporting and a much better relationship, a partnership of sorts, with the communities they serve.

Of the Community, For the Community…

In this same vein is the work being done by Spectrum One’s news operation in Los Angeles where they have hired non-traditional reporters from specific communities in the area to report on the areas they live. It’s a different experience altogether for the audience. A news operation of the community, for the community. A much more peer-to-peer relationship, which is exactly where local news needs to be today.

Both of these efforts required honest assessments of where they were, where they needed to be, and zero-based recommendations of the best ways to get there. Org. charts were re-imagined, resources redistributed, and output expectations adjusted. There were no sacred cows and no excuses.

Different Venue. Same Result…

There’s an interesting parallel taking place in the legal community where the use of “expert witnesses” is coming under increasing scrutiny. Suffice to say, there is a move afoot to draw expert testimony from people who have a working expertise through lived experience as opposed to those with an academic understanding or theory. For example: Public Defenders representing suspects charged with gang related crimes are increasingly recruiting former gang members to testify about specifics of the life or activity to counteract the sometimes overly broad stroke assumptions provided by law enforcement generalists. Ground-level perspective and context over the proverbial 35,000 foot view. It makes sense and it’s working.

Bottom Line: The “greatest common denominator” days are over. Greater specificity, context, and perspective is required and quality of information over quantity is the order of the day.