Television news has a good week — but a precarious future 

On the national stage, television news has had a strong week. More than 67 million people tuned into ABC News for the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, according to Nielsen. 

Debate moderators Linsey Davis and David Muir earned rave reviews from pundits, with the New York Times’s Michael M. Grynbaum calling them “calm and authoritative” and saying that they “offered a model for real-time fact-checking that has been absent from many recent presidential debates.” The Trump team was less happy, with Trump saying that ABC should lose its broadcast license, CNBC reports. Whether there will be another debate is still unclear, writes Tom Jones in Poynter. 

But in his latest Substack newsletter, Dick Tofel writes that the “winter” may be coming for local television news, which has largely been spared the significant decline in local media’s prospects over the last two decades. He predicts that after the election, when the “sugar high” of political advertising wanes, local TV outlets will see major cuts. 

News In Focus
Headlines, resources and events aligned with API’s four areas of focus.

Civic Discourse & Democracy

>> Former Washington Post Editor Martin Baron: ‘We need an independent press if we’re to have a democracy’ (Asheville Watchdog)

In a recent interview, Marty Baron spoke to the necessity of journalism: “There is not one country in the world, ever, in the history of the world, where you have a true democracy without an independent press.” 

>> Join us: Pulling back the curtain on what happens on election night

Join this API and AP webinar with news leaders who will help you understand AP’s vote count operation and approach to election coverage. The webinar will be held on Thursday, September 26 from 1 – 2pm EDT. 

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Culture & Inclusion

>> The mobile newsrooms restoring citizens’ faith in journalism (The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project)

10 reporters in North Macedonia set up a “mobile newsroom” in the historic city of Ohrid to investigate corruption by a local official. Their success in Ohrid led them to use this model to visit areas across the country that have little access to local news. 

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Community Engagement & Trust

>> The in-town newsroom can be much more than overhead; it’s an opportunity to connect with the community (Editor & Publisher)

While many newspapers have moved away from downtown offices, some small town news outlets are embracing physical spaces in cities as a way to build community. In Marfa, Texas, new newspaper owners have built a cafe adjacent to their newsroom, and use their space to host concerts and speakers.

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Revenue & Resilience

>> The affiliate revenue market for publishers has changed a lot (Baekdal)

Following on the Guardian’s announcement that it will introduce an ecommerce platform with affiliate links, Thomas Baekdal writes that Google’s crackdown on spammy product recommendations makes affiliate revenue for this type of content much more difficult than in the past. 

>> With an expansion on the way, Ken Doctor’s Lookout thinks it has some answers to the local news crisis (NiemanLab)

After winning a Pulitzer at the Santa Cruz Lookout, the local media company founded by news industry analyst Ken Doctor is expanding into Oregon. Doctor says Eugene was a good prospect because it has many college-educated, affluent citizens and its chain-owned daily newspaper has suffered in recent decades. 

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What else you need to know

💸 The Song Foundation and The Joyce Foundation commit $1.28 million to Wallace House Center for Journalists to launch the Great Lakes Local News Initiative (Wallace House)

💻 JournalismAI announces Innovation Challenge, supported by the Google News Initiative (JournalismAI)

🤖 Master automation for your newsroom in this three-part Zapier workshop series (Center for Cooperative Media) 

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Weekend reads

+ ‘If journalism is going up in smoke, I might as well get high off the fumes’: Confessions of a chatbot helper (The Guardian) 

+ The 9/11 Commission Report turns 20. It still has lessons for journalists. (Columbia Journalism Review) 

+ Amid urban and news business declines, a reporter finds hope at the end of the line (Poynter)