Local Television News is trusted far more that national news outlets.

A study conducted by Gallup and the Knight Foundation has found that local television news is trusted by more people than national news outlets. The latest poll showed the gap between trust in local and national news has grown by three percentage points since Gallup/Knight’s findings on this measure in 2019. “In 2021, Americans were 17 points more likely to say they trust reporting by local news organizations “a great deal” or “quite a lot” than to trust reporting by national news organizations,” the report said. As a result, WOUB’s Spectrum podcast is doing a special series on the impacts of local news by talking with representatives of three television stations: WEWS TV in Cleveland, WCPO TV in Cincinnati and WKRT in Norfolk, Virginia. We are trying to learn how local news stations operate, how they determine their content, and how they meet the needs of their audiences. Our first guests are Joe Donatelli, digital director at WEWS and Mark Ackerman, Investigative Executive Producer at WEWS in Cleveland. They discuss the need for strong investigative reporting on the local level as well as the demands of constantly changing and updating digital content. We also learn of their individual career paths.