Local news and COVID-19 in North Carolina (page 11)

Areas for further study

This study is largely descriptive in nature, and does not attempt to examine any causality behind the trends observed. While we can speculate about why different local news organizations covered the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways, these findings suggest additional areas for further exploration, as well as different approaches for future studies.

• A future study could survey local news audiences in the same markets to understand their needs. Local news audiences might say that they need very different information than the coverage local news sources are providing. Surveying local news audiences and comparing the results to the topics and framing reflected in local articles could indicate whether a community’s information needs are being met.
• Interview local journalists. Interviews with local journalists about why they decided to cover certain topics and use certain frames for their articles could be illuminating. This is especially true for outliers like ABC11, which showed a much higher share of articles framed around hope than other news sources, or WLOS, which had the highest share of explanatory articles.
• Examine web traffic metrics from news local sources to see what types of coverage audiences are engaging with the most. The flip side of studying the types of articles posted on news sites is studying which types of articles get the most audience engagement — pageviews, shares and more. Access to these metrics would allow an investigator to assess which topics and methods of framing the news attracted the most audience engagement, and assess how news sources can more effectively engage their audiences.
• Study COVID-19 coverage in other local news sources, especially online-only startups. While this project focused on identifying trends in legacy print and broadcast news sources, local news startups have sprung up in many communities across the U.S. Many of these companies are attempting to fill in the gaps created by the loss of local news, and many are having a real impact and building sizable audiences. For example, in Charlotte, the email newsletter-based Axios Charlotte (formerly the Charlotte Agenda) has become significant sources of local news — even hiring away multiple journalists from the Charlotte Observer. With a daily email audience of more than 100,000, and 270,000 Instagram followers, Axios Charlotte draws an audience that rivals the Charlotte Observer’s in terms of sheer size. In Asheville, the Asheville Watchdog is a free, non-profit, online-only news site founded by local veteran journalists who felt their community needed better local coverage for many issues. Studying their COVID-19 coverage could provide additional insight into how these new sources of news are serving their communities in ways similar to or different from traditional local news sources.

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