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This cropped up in an existing thread about something else so I thought I'd start a new thread instead of going way off topic on the other one.
What does everyone think about local stations with a news policy of always leading with a local story? I know local is their USP, so it makes sense, but I must admit I have heard bulletins that have started with a fairly minor story when a larger national story has been on my mind. Is it a good policy? Or does there need to be a greater degree of flexibility in order not to underplay national stories of greater general interest? Are residents of any community so insular that they want a smaller local story first, rather than the national story that everyone's talking about?
Also, I posed this question on the other thread - does anyone have an example of when they heard a local station lead with something local that sounded extremely inappropriate in the light of a big national story that came later in the bulletin?
What does everyone think about local stations with a news policy of always leading with a local story? I know local is their USP, so it makes sense, but I must admit I have heard bulletins that have started with a fairly minor story when a larger national story has been on my mind. Is it a good policy? Or does there need to be a greater degree of flexibility in order not to underplay national stories of greater general interest? Are residents of any community so insular that they want a smaller local story first, rather than the national story that everyone's talking about?
Also, I posed this question on the other thread - does anyone have an example of when they heard a local station lead with something local that sounded extremely inappropriate in the light of a big national story that came later in the bulletin?
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My local daily paper always has a local story on the front page and has a page of national and international news inside, along with some local angles on national stories too.
Why should my local radio station be any different?
Okay, if a seriously major event kicks off, perhaps they should both lead with it, but events of such magnitude are few and far between.
The telling detail is in the writing.
The paper will present its local page 1 in a far less parochial fashion and so it does not seem incongruous or trite when compared with its top national story on page 2.
The radio station usually just rewrites what's in the paper, has no audio and doesn't have such good writers, so if a good national story runs second it can jar a bit, since it is written by better (national) reporters and often comes with good audio.
So, yes I think local stations should lead bulletins with local stories but probably don't have the talent pool to present them as well as they might.
Do you expect anyone to even bother about what they're writing for that kind of money?!
Thank you for that. Really intelligent, balanced post which gave me a lot to think about. So, in your opinion, how can a local station retain that local USP with their main story if, for example, Madeline McCann was found tomorrow? (I apologise if anyone finds that example in poor taste, but it is highly relevant to the subject.) What kind of content would a local station need to be leading with in order to justify relegating that story to the second item? Or would that be one of the execptions you referred to? In which case, where do you place the markers? I like the local first policy but it's when they get it wrong that it "jars", as you say. What would be good guidelines for balance? I remember hearing a local news bulletin (in the East) with a top story about a driving offence, at the same time as the murder of Anthony Walker in Liverpool was breaking news. I was somewhat shocked that such a trivial story should take precedence over that. A local death/murder/rape/serious crime I could have understood but, to me, that seemed insensitive and I felt let down that the news reader hadn't informed me earlier.
I think the ideal would be to have a local story as the lead - but it needs to be the right story - i think setting rules and guidelines based on such things is rather shortsighted on the part of editors.
Both are cutting back though - the bigger problem at the moment seems to be the number of jobs, not how much they're being paid.
In a word No
Local print journalists are rarely paid less than radio journalists in the same market in my experience. I've been in print journalism for the better part of two decades and don't know anyone in print who would get out of bed for £12,000 a year. Plus they tend to get final salary pensions. Anyone in radio got one of those?
Anyway, I digress.
In response to the above example: If Maddy were found I'd fully expect the radio to lead on it. But I bet my local rag wouldn't run it on the front. It'd turn up on the website faster than the radio could get it there though!
The real difference is that the paper comes out a day after the event when the agenda has moved on.
Radio can capitalise on the excitement of the moment on the day.
The paper will be read, in many cases, more than 12 hours after the event and alongside many other national print competitors. It will almost certainly still go with a local story because everyone will already know about Maddy, for example.
The radio station will still rip off the lead and run it further down the bulletin though!