Beth Johnson

I know 2026 is a big political year. That’s why I am proposing that next year, local newsrooms put out mandates that newscast producers can no longer run national political packages “as is” in newscasts. Local newsrooms still have viewers’ trust. But polls show an increasing number of Americans are hesitant to give that same trust to national media outlets. Just last month, Pew Research and Gallup released research providing more context. Local news has a different approach to covering information overall, so it makes sense to cover national political news more like you would a local story, rather than …

Local newsrooms are retaining trust at better rates than national media, so just using national political packages from feeds in local newscasts doesn’t make sense

Local newsrooms must set the mission and make the internal changes necessary to achieve the goal every day.

Now that the Nexstar-Tegna merger is complete, it’s time to be blunt. Consolidation, like this merger, will help regulate retransmission fees and provide more consistent advertising revenue, but this financial piece is only part of the solution. Consolidation will only benefit local news if more resources are allocated to a key element of journalism: finding and vetting information. Local news needs to improve its ability to source local content. Nexstar leadership consistently gives local station leadership significant power over coverage decisions and format. With this consolidation the company has an opportunity to effect meaningful change in the industry by investing …

Newsrooms need help improving story turnaround times to increase content across multiple platforms. If you don’t invest in ways to make the workday more manageable for journalists, “newsroom-of-the-future” models will fail. So often, leadership focuses on technologies to increase the number of content versions across multiple platforms rather than on how to create more high-quality local stories to begin with. That’s why newsrooms keep hemorrhaging rating numbers and new strategies fail. With the NAB Show coming up, now is a good time to spell out the biggest time sucks newsrooms face every single day, since there is often a lack …

For years, efforts to make the UK television industry more inclusive have largely focused on access initiatives, designed to help people from underrepresented backgrounds “get a foot in the door”.

Happening in newsrooms right now: Staffing-Wise A news director is producing a newscast. A growing number of newscast producers’ normal shifts includes producing two shows a day. Executive producers are producing newscasts, in charge of digital content and are getting “accountability emails” asking why the newscast producer they are also supposed to oversee made a factual error. Immediate response requested. An MMJ is at the scene of a story, feeling unsafe and knowing they cannot call in to let someone know. There’s no backup option on staff. A managing editor is told that part of their daily job now includes …

It’s budget season for local newsrooms — time to justify every role, every dollar spent and ask for key positions needed next year. Sometimes it’s hard for the financial side to really understand what’s being cut. Here’s a reality check.

Budget season means evaluating which positions are easiest to live without in most newsrooms. There is another careful consideration to take into account: making sure there are still positions that allow for training.

Toby Constable Beth Johnson First published: 25 August 2026 INTRODUCTION