Local TV’s unusual opportunity to inject facts into filter bubbles
From the election to COVID, the timing could not be more critical
Filter bubbles are the greatest enemy of facts in the US. Once just a safe harbor of like-minded opinions, some filter bubbles have become alternative universes. If you only watch Fox News primetime and hang out in “Trump’s Army” Facebook group, you’re isolated amid alternative facts, conspiracy theories and misinformation.
These filter bubbles have become more impervious over time, cementing opinions and stretching the divide. NYTimes, CNN and Politifact can double their fact-checking, but it can’t penetrate the Fox News bubble. It doesn’t fall on deaf ears — it can’t access those eyes and ears in the first place.
But there is one large segment of the media ecosystem that spans the political divide: local TV news. While in a slow decline, local TV news outpaces newspapers, cable TV and network TV in both total audience and trust. On the digital side, local TV news has a thriving footprint, especially if you consider its outsized Facebook presence.
Taken together, local TV has the largest, most diverse news audience in the US. People of all political persuasions watch at scale, and that puts local TV newsrooms in a unique position to inject facts into filter bubbles. With the integrity of the election hanging in the balance — and COVID back on the rise – the timing couldn’t be more important.
Some efforts are underway. Tegna’s “Verify” combines fact-checking segments with journalism training initiatives. Hearst’s “Commitment 2020” provides fact-checking across all 50 states in partnership with FactCheck.org. And there are a few others, but so much more can be done.
Local TV newsrooms have a long history of careful “both sides” coverage, but facts don’t have two sides. Mail-in ballots are safe and secure. Masks save lives. Systemic racism plagues our country. Climate change is real.
With the election upon us, local TV has a tremendous opportunity to accelerate its efforts to educate Americans and inject facts into filter bubbles. Not just as a franchise, but as an all-out blitz, spanning both news coverage and promos.
Journalists outside local TV can help, too, by celebrating these efforts outside the niche industry recognition they’ve received. Local TV can be more impactful than a thousand CNNs, and the opportunity to make a difference in these critical days is too great to ignore.
(I’ve worked in local, network and cable TV news. Now I’m co-founder of Factal, a breaking news verification company.)
