Local TV news changed little after terrorist attacks

NEW YORK -- The content of local television news changed little after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks even as the story touched the lives of most viewers, a study released Thursday found.

Crime stories still dominated, increasing slightly to 25 percent of newscasts, according to the study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, while only 1 percent of the stories dealt with homeland security -- despite airports tightening security, the threat of bioterrorism and increased nervousness about threats to public places.

Coverage of foreign policy and defense issues increased from 4 percent to 9 percent of the broadcasts, the study found. Arguably, those stories are less the province of local news than how the aftermath of the attacks affected individual communities -- and that was where little initiative was evident, said Tom Rosenstiel, the project's director.

"It wasn't just that we went to war in Afghanistan," he said. "The whole country was changed by 9-11 and that was a great story and an important one."

It showed the reluctance of television stations to break from their routines, a common theme the project found in a five-year examination of local news. This was the last year of the content study.

The study's findings this year were based on 53 stations in 17 markets over a two-week period in March and May 2002.

Rosenstiel's impression of local television news over the course of the study is an industry stretched thin by budget cuts and a thirst for profits. In many cases, local broadcast affiliates have added newscasts with little additional staff.

Increasingly, you see cameras sent to events with no reporters, use of stock footage from news services and clips from electronic press kits -- all signs of broadcasts trying to do more with less, he said.