Sound bites: Medill Study Finds More Diversity Needed in Newscast Sound Bites

The last sentence of the lead paragraph of the Broadcasting and Cable release was clear to me. Viewers want more diversity of sound bites. (And, I would add, in video clips as well.)

I am not a patient viewer. When watching news, I click among the 24-hour cable news stations, and if it's a major breaking story, among NBC, ABC, and CBS as well. During evening news programs, the stations generally are covering the same stories, often in the same order. And the coverage is remarkably--and boringly--the same. Same sound bites. Same video clips. If the story takes longer to report than the video clip lasts, the clip replays...and replays...and replays....

So I was pleased to see that in the recently released 91-page study "The Local TV News Experience: How To Win Viewers by Focusing on Engagement" conducted by the Medill/Media Management Center at Northwestern University, viewers identified the same problem I saw. Except,

that's not exactly what the study found.

The study is a wealth of information about viewer's perceptions of local TV news. (It surveyed viewers in the Chicago metro area, but I suspect the results would be similar in any medium to major market.)

Respondents believed local TV news "Makes Me Smarter," is more trustworthy than newspapers, and that newscasts are "All the Same."

But when it came to diversity of sound bites, the researchers where speaking of racial and gender diversity, not diversity in my sense of variety!

Medill identified 811 newscast sound bites...and found that 69% were made by men, 31% by women.
In sound bites in which race was identifiable, 75% were made by whites. In political stories, 89% of bites were delivered by males, 90% by whites.

Reflecting the feeling of several station executives, ABC affiliate WLS's VP/News Director Jennifer Graves said, “We can all do better at being more representative.”

Certainly a noble goal. But at the same time, why not look for the meaningful rather than the obvious visual? (For a medical story do we always have to have a doctor walking down the hall--stethoscope around neck or hanging out of pocket--and a patient sitting in the office with an IV either in or being started?). The insightful ("How are you coping with this tragedy?") versus the trite ("Do you think you'll ever forget this?") question?

Coverage of breaking stories will be essentially the same because usually there isn't much information, especially video, available. But the longer the time from the event, the more distinct the coverage should become.

Full Disclosure (probably more than necessary) of my connections to Medill: Medill would have been my alma mater. It was among the preeminent schools of journalism and I was eager to force Mike Wallace  into early retirement. But although I applied and was accepted, Medill by that time had shifted from first choice to "safe" choice. Why? Because I visited the campus in late August. The wind whipping off the lake was so chilling, I projected what it would be like in January, and I wanted no part of it. And Mike Wallace's status remained secure for another 30 years.