A few weeks ago KFTY-TV, a Santa Rosa, California station owned by Clear Channel, laid off its 13-person news staff in order to cut costs. They have not shuttered the station, however, nor do they plan on ending their local news coverage, says Steve Spendlove, station GM. Instead, you guessed it, they'll be harvesting local content (all together now—"Eww.")
This is significant, readers, because up to now most outlets have claimed (many in good faith) that their citizen journalism efforts have been about establishing a more meaningful relationship with their audience and creating a better news product. Leave it to Clear Channel, the bete noire of all right-thinking Americans since they ruined terrestrial radio in the mid-90s, to turn it into a cost-saving measure.
Wish I had time to parse the various meanings of this move, but I've got a sick kid on my hands and lots of work for the book. And lots of smart people have already mulled this one over. Just want to make sure the crowdsourcing community is up on this ...
The original SF Chronicle Piece.
The always-savvy Matthew Ingram on crowdsourcing as cost-cutting.
Poynter's Peter Zollman piles on his indignation.
There are others, but an intrepid reader will pick up the conversation by following links in the above posts. Have to run ...
It's an interesting development. On the one hand, I can see that Spendlove was motivated (or ordered by Clear Channel) to cut costs to keep KFTY-TV on the air. The downside is that professional staff are laid off and cast aside to drive costs down.
These news journos were employed to bring the news that editors believed would capture viewer interest and retain local audience figures.
The worst case scenario is that despite reducing costs by using citizen journos; news content is still not enough to retain viewing figures and KFTY-TV closes anyway.
On the other hand, it could be a tipping point in changing the news content and broadcast topics covered by the TV station. Why? Well, citizen journos are motivated to report on what captures their own interests; which could be very different content to the material previously believed by editorial staff to be topical or relevant to its local audience.
Going forward, this could be an interesting experiment in monitoring how the viewing crowd influence the TV station's output.
Also, note that Spendlove is making an interesting strategic change.
If costs are reduced and the TV station retains its viewing figures, he's a Hero.
If the viewing crowd change editorial policy and the audience increases as a result, then guess what? Spendlove is a Hero.
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