The Power of Local TV News

Declining trust and evolving business models continue to buffet the media industry. Christine Schmidt at Harvard's Nieman Foundation proposes a way to reverse both trends: collaborations with local TV stations. Local television is the most trusted form of news, and until 2017 it outpaced all digital as a source for news content. And yet local TV accounts for only 7 percent of news media collaborations, which are exploding among digital sites, daily papers and nonprofit newsrooms.

How do we explain this gap? Local broadcasters are stubborn and highly competitive amongst themselves, according to one investigative reporter Schmidt interviews. Still, it's hard to imagine the same pressures squeezing other media categories won't reach local TV, especially as the cord-cutting trend accelerates. Forward-thinking stations will look for opportunities to fill this collaboration gap with eager partners.