Time of peril for TV news

Local television news has reached a crossroad.

Viewers are beginning to abandon the medium, especially to the Internet, much as network news began to lose audience more than a decade ago with the advent of cable.

But in response the industry is headed toward making a fateful mistake.

A major ongoing study of local television news reveals that the business is cutting back on precisely the elements that attract viewers - including enterprise, localism, breadth, innovation, and sourcing. A major reason is that the business is committed to maintaining profit margins it enjoyed in an earlier era.

Without needing to, local television news is driving Americans away from what was long the most popular and trusted source of information in the country

These are some of the key conclusions of Year Three of the continuing study of local television news by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a think tank affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.