APME National Credibility Roundtables Project
6News
Lawrence, KS
What You Learned
Cody Howard
News Director
April 19, 2004 - Community Recreation Center
Facilitator: Peggy Kuhr, Knight Chair in Journalism, University of Kansas.
What were the key issues discussed at the roundtable?
How Channel 6 viewers perceive the television station's relationship with it's convergence partners -- the Lawrence Journal-World and it's internet sites. How that relationship is portrayed on television. Do viewers feel The World Company has a monopoly in Lawrence?
Were some issues more important to readers, viewers, story subjects and sources? If so, what were they?
Depth and accuracy in reporting. (See below)
Were there important points of agreement on coverage approaches or news philosophy that would improve the newspaper's content and its credibility? What were they?
The consensus of the panel was that Channel 6 (and its print partner) should focus more on accuracy and depth in reporting than speed. Panelists continually mentioned they felt having the facts straight and presenting them with a sense/knowledge of the complexity of the issues was more important than being the first organization to have a story. Panelists felt that given our relationship with the newspaper (and the newspaper's relationship with us) we could (and should) take the time to really make stories something special.
Were there points on which roundtable participants agreed to disagree? Where were they?
There was some disagreement over refers. 6News will routinely mention that "You can read more about that in tomorrow's Journal-World" during the newscast after reporting on a story generated by a print reporter. Some panelists felt that 1) it sounded like we were peddling newspapers. 2) they already read the Journal-World and know they can inherently plan to get more information from print than broadcast. 3) if television has the information at 10 p.m. it should be reported then and not held until the next day's newspaper.
Other panelists said they expected to see some cross-promotion and were not bothered by the mention of additional information they could find in the next day's Journal-World.
Will the newspaper consider changes in its coverage of the roundtable issue, or in its news philosophy, as a result of the discussions? What changes?
Yes. We plan to cut back slightly on our refers -- and we're considering making a few other changes. We're implementing a plan to have each reporter do a more 'substantial' piece each week -- to address the panel's concerns about depth in reporting. While unrelated to convergence, panelists also mentioned that they'd love to see a weekend newscast (we're currently on Monday-Friday 6 and 10 p.m) so we're now looking into what it would take to add a newscast on the the weekend.
How has the newspaper informed its readers of the roundtable, what happened there and what may occur because of the discussion?
Prior to the event, we ran a brief story in the newcast and a brief in print soliticiing participation in the discussion. The newscast following the roundtable, we ran a brief story with video from the discussion explaining the event to viewers and letting them know we planned to make some changes. There was no coverage of the event in print.
We plan to e-mail the panelists once we've implemented some of their suggestions.
Contact information
Cody Howard: choward@sunflowerbroadband.com