Where Has all the Quality Gone... or Has it Gone?

Mary T. Rogus
rogus@ohio.edu

Sunday night at the RTNDA@NAB Opening Session Bob Papper of Hofstra University released information from the latest RTNDA Salary Survey. It presents interesting and conflicting information. In 2008 more than four percent of broadcast journalists lost their jobs--1200 television and radio newspeople out of work. But at the same time television stations added on average another half hour of news. Television stations now produce a record average hours of news--4.6. That's pretty much the classic definition of doing more with less.

So What About Quality?
One of the themes of this opening session titled Leading News Reinvention was quality...what is it? Who defines it? Has it changed? How?

There was division on the panel between those working local television news and those supporting or consulting it. Kevin Roach, Vice President of Broadcast News for the Associated Press, just flat out said that he didn't think most local news was relevant, "It's a lot of crap."

Terry Heaton, a Senior Vice President for the consulting firm, Audience Research and Development said investigative journalism doesn't matter--it's not what the audience wants.

Fortunately the man with the numbers, Bob Papper disputed that, noting that when you ask viewers, they do like good investigative journalism, and it turns out younger viewers like it the most. And there's more evidence that quality sells, the book We Interrupt This Newscast: How to Improve Local News and Win Ratings, Too reports research on television news quality and it's relationship to viewer ratings. One of the key findings is that longer, more enterprise stories with three or more sources bring in ratings.

Susana Schuler, Vice President of News for Raycom stations, and Lane Michelsen, Director of the Information Center (formerly known as News Director) for WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., agreed that many local stations are doing relevant news that serves their communities. While they acknowledged that change is necessary, they both expressed pride in what their newsrooms do and endorsed the important basics of good, ethical journalism.

So What is Quality?
An interesting part of the discussion about whether quality is dropping in broadcast journalism as we have fewer, younger people in newsrooms doing more on multiple platforms, was the definition of quality. Moderator Russ Mitchell of CBS News asked the question if quality was lost as demands for quantity went up.

That's when the discussion turned to a definition of quality. Most panelists agreed that when you put cameras in the hands of everyone, the video quality might go down a little compared to when only experienced videographers were doing the shooting, but would viewers notice? Do viewers care if video is NPPA quality or are they more interested in breadth of coverage and getting it fast?

Having worked in one of the top television markets for video journalism, Minneapolis, I can say that excellent pictures make excellent stories. It was the teams of reporter and videographer that brought incredible storytelling to the screen every night. If the stations in Minneapolis go to all video journalists, or VJs I think the viewers would definitely notice.

But Schuler and Michelsen argued that the important definition of quality was not visual or technical, but editorial. Yes, you may lose some visual quality when you put small, cheaper cameras in the hands of reporters who previously didn't have to shoot their own video, but that would be acceptable to most viewers as long as the accuracy, completeness and fairness of storytelling didn't change. No matter what the platform, whether you're writing a two minute television story or 140 character Tweet, editorial quality needed to remain a constant.

I have to agree. Although I started in the television news business as a one-man-band reporter (that's what we were called in the 'olden' days of TV news), and to this day, appreciate that fact because I learned from the ground up to always think visually, I was a terrible videographer. Viewers in Roanoke, VA, got much better television on the days I was lucky enough to work with our one photographer. But I don't think they necessarily got better reporting, better editorial quality. I found that I could craft my story best when I had shot my own video and knew exactly what I had to work with.

With the 24/7 demands of television, web and mobile platforms for content, newsrooms may not be able to afford people who don't produce content. And the luxury of having two plus people on every story may be a thing of the past. We can lament the "good ole days", or as Sunday night's panelists suggested, we can and must move forward. That's clearly going to mean flexibility in our definitions of technical quality, while we hold the line on editorial quality.

You can read the live blog from this session and catch up on all the news from RTNDA@NAB at www.rtnda.org/convention.