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For the better part of a decade, Mike Beaudet has been teaching young people the practice of investigative reporting for television at Northeastern University in Boston. He’s noticed a disturbing trend among his students.
“None of them sit down and watch a local TV newscast,” Beaudet says. “They want to go into the business; it’s just not how younger people get their news.”
If even the people who want to be on TV news don’t watch it, that certainly doesn’t bode well for the industry’s sustainability prospects. Not only does this bit of data indicate that local TV newscasts will likely have much smaller audiences in the future, but also that up-and-coming on-air talent won’t learn the trade from watching today’s pros.
In 2017, Northeastern launched the Reinventing Local TV News Project to help shape a future where TV news better attracts young viewers. Across two phases so far, the project has conducted a national survey, which helped identify a TV news programming need for more diverse and engaging content and found that when advanced animation and graphics are added to stories, audience interest and comprehension increases.
Beaudet, the project’s lead, says the third phase is the project’s most ambitious yet. It has begun with a call for applications to a year-long fellowship at one of three stations. Three content producers will write, shoot and edit content strictly for digital platforms — OTT channels, websites and social media feeds